Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

A study published inHealth & Placefound that intentional alone time in natural settings (e.g., lakeshores) decreases loneliness more effectively than forced socialization.Connectedness to nature (kinship with ecosystems) and place attachment (emotional bonds to specific locations) were the strongest predictors of reduced loneliness.Sensory engagement (observing water, listening to birds) had a greater impact than exercise-focused activities, highlighting the role of mindful presence.Chosen alone time fosters mental clarity and emotional regulation while bonding with nature provides fulfillment independent of human interaction.Short nature breaks (20 mins), sensory immersion, revisiting favorite spots and balancing solitude with social needs can improve well-being in an overconnected world. Connectedness to nature (kinship with ecosystems) and place attachment (emotional bonds to specific locations) were the strongest predictors of reduced loneliness.Sensory engagement (observing water, listening to birds) had a greater impact than exercise-focused activities, highlighting the role of mindful presence.Chosen alone time fosters mental clarity and emotional regulation while bonding with nature provides fulfillment independent of human interaction.Short nature breaks (20 mins), sensory immersion, revisiting favorite spots and balancing solitude with social needs can improve well-being in an overconnected world. Sensory engagement (observing water, listening to birds) had a greater impact than exercise-focused activities, highlighting the role of mindful presence.Chosen alone time fosters mental clarity and emotional regulation while bonding with nature provides fulfillment independent of human interaction.Short nature breaks (20 mins), sensory immersion, revisiting favorite spots and balancing solitude with social needs can improve well-being in an overconnected world. Chosen alone time fosters mental clarity and emotional regulation while bonding with nature provides fulfillment independent of human interaction.Short nature breaks (20 mins), sensory immersion, revisiting favorite spots and balancing solitude with social needs can improve well-being in an overconnected world. Short nature breaks (20 mins), sensory immersion, revisiting favorite spots and balancing solitude with social needs can improve well-being in an overconnected world. In an increasingly hyperconnected world, where social interactions are often measured in likes and notifications, new research suggests that the antidote to loneliness may lie in solitude—particularly when experienced in nature. A study published in the journalHealth & Placefound that spending time alone near natural landscapes, such as lakeshores, significantly reduces feelings of loneliness—not through socializing, but through a deeper connection to the environment itself. The findings challenge conventional wisdom, suggesting that intentional solitude in nature fosters emotional well-being more effectively than forced socialization in urban settings.The science behind solitude and natureResearchers in Norway surveyed 2,544 residents living near the country's largest lake, examining how different outdoor activities, such as walking along the shore, swimming or fishing, affected their sense of loneliness. Surprisingly, those who engaged in these activities alone reported the strongest reductions in loneliness, driven by two key factors:Connectedness to nature – A sense of kinship with plants, animals and the broader ecosystem was the most powerful predictor of reduced loneliness.Place attachment – Emotional bonds to specific natural locations, such as a favorite lakeside trail, helped individuals feel rooted and less isolated, even without human interaction.Activities that encouraged sensory engagement—e.g., observing the water, listening to birds and feeling the breeze—had a stronger effect than exercise-focused outings, suggesting that mindfulness in nature plays a crucial role in emotional well-being.Why solitude works better than forced socializationThe study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com The science behind solitude and natureResearchers in Norway surveyed 2,544 residents living near the country's largest lake, examining how different outdoor activities, such as walking along the shore, swimming or fishing, affected their sense of loneliness. Surprisingly, those who engaged in these activities alone reported the strongest reductions in loneliness, driven by two key factors:Connectedness to nature – A sense of kinship with plants, animals and the broader ecosystem was the most powerful predictor of reduced loneliness.Place attachment – Emotional bonds to specific natural locations, such as a favorite lakeside trail, helped individuals feel rooted and less isolated, even without human interaction.Activities that encouraged sensory engagement—e.g., observing the water, listening to birds and feeling the breeze—had a stronger effect than exercise-focused outings, suggesting that mindfulness in nature plays a crucial role in emotional well-being.Why solitude works better than forced socializationThe study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Researchers in Norway surveyed 2,544 residents living near the country's largest lake, examining how different outdoor activities, such as walking along the shore, swimming or fishing, affected their sense of loneliness. Surprisingly, those who engaged in these activities alone reported the strongest reductions in loneliness, driven by two key factors:Connectedness to nature – A sense of kinship with plants, animals and the broader ecosystem was the most powerful predictor of reduced loneliness.Place attachment – Emotional bonds to specific natural locations, such as a favorite lakeside trail, helped individuals feel rooted and less isolated, even without human interaction.Activities that encouraged sensory engagement—e.g., observing the water, listening to birds and feeling the breeze—had a stronger effect than exercise-focused outings, suggesting that mindfulness in nature plays a crucial role in emotional well-being.Why solitude works better than forced socializationThe study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Connectedness to nature – A sense of kinship with plants, animals and the broader ecosystem was the most powerful predictor of reduced loneliness.Place attachment – Emotional bonds to specific natural locations, such as a favorite lakeside trail, helped individuals feel rooted and less isolated, even without human interaction.Activities that encouraged sensory engagement—e.g., observing the water, listening to birds and feeling the breeze—had a stronger effect than exercise-focused outings, suggesting that mindfulness in nature plays a crucial role in emotional well-being.Why solitude works better than forced socializationThe study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Connectedness to nature – A sense of kinship with plants, animals and the broader ecosystem was the most powerful predictor of reduced loneliness.Place attachment – Emotional bonds to specific natural locations, such as a favorite lakeside trail, helped individuals feel rooted and less isolated, even without human interaction. Place attachment – Emotional bonds to specific natural locations, such as a favorite lakeside trail, helped individuals feel rooted and less isolated, even without human interaction. Activities that encouraged sensory engagement—e.g., observing the water, listening to birds and feeling the breeze—had a stronger effect than exercise-focused outings, suggesting that mindfulness in nature plays a crucial role in emotional well-being.Why solitude works better than forced socializationThe study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Why solitude works better than forced socializationThe study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com The study highlights a critical distinction between solitude (chosen, restorative alone time) and isolation (unwanted disconnection). While loneliness is often framed as a social deficit requiring more interaction, the research suggests that meaningful alone time in nature provides an alternative pathway to fulfillment.Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness.This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Internal connection – Without distractions, individuals can turn their attention outward, fostering mental clarity and emotional regulation.External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness. External connection – Bonding with a natural setting creates a sense of belonging independent of human relationships, easing the existential weight of loneliness. This aligns with broader research showing that exposure to nature lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity and enhances creativity—benefits that urban environments often fail to replicate.According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com According toBrightU.AI's Enoch engine, spending time in green spaces has also been found to lower depression risk, enhance overall well-being and help mitigate obesity by encouraging physical activity. Additionally, studies show that regular exposure to nature lowers blood pressure, further supporting long-term health.A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com A counterintuitive solution to modern lonelinessIf you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com If you're looking to integrate these findings into your daily life, taking these small but intentional steps can make a significant difference:Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time.As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Start small– Even 20 minutes in a park or near water can shift perspective.Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time. Engage your senses– Leave behind podcasts and phones occasionally; focus on natural sounds, smells and textures.Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time. Cultivate place attachment– Return to the same natural spot regularly to deepen emotional ties.Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time. Balance needs– Solitude isn't a cure-all; those craving human connection should seek it, while those feeling overwhelmed may benefit from quiet outdoor time. As loneliness reaches epidemic proportions in industrialized societies, public health solutions often emphasize more social programs or digital connectivity. But this research suggests that the simplest remedy may be stepping outside—alone.The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com The findings do not advocate for isolation but rather for intentional solitude—a deliberate pause from the noise of modern life to reconnect with the natural world. In a culture that equates busyness with worth, embracing quiet moments outdoors may be one of the most radical acts of self-care and a profound way to rediscover belonging in a world that often feels fragmented.For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com For those who have ever felt guilty about craving alone time, the science is clear: solitude in nature isn't avoidance. It's restoration. And in an age of artificial connections, it might just be the most authentic way to feel less alone.Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Watch the following video to learn thebest mental health prescriptiondiscovered by researchers.This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com This video is from theDaily Videos channel onBrighteon.com.Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com Sources include:MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com MindBodyGreen.comScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com ScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com ScienceDirect.comBrightU.aiBrighteon.com BrightU.aiBrighteon.com BrightU.aiBrighteon.com Brighteon.com Brighteon.com This site is part of the Natural News Network © 2022 All Rights Reserved.Privacy|TermsAll content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing International, LTD. is not responsible for content written by contributing authors. The information on this site is provided for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional advice of any kind. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. Your use of this website indicates your agreement to these terms and thosepublished here. All trademarks, registered trademarks and servicemarks mentioned on this site are the property of their respective owners.

First-time buyers, entry cars: The missing links in India’s auto boom 98 million SIP accounts power Indian equities. What if they stop? Is private sector corruption free? Here's the reality... Why PNG for every kitchen remains a pipe dream amid LPG crunch As fraud cases rise, are banks doing enough to stop them? In a volatile market, odds do favour contrarians, but only if they have an edge: 4 stocks from different sectors with dividend yield of up to 5.8%

The HP OmniBook Ultra is a Panther Lake beast, a thin and light Copilot+ PC that surpasses the MacBook Air in some key ways. HP went in a different direction with the OmniBook Ultra and to good effect: The form factor is a familiar clamshell design, of course, but it has a unique and handsome design with sharp, polished edges. It’s also incredibly thin, with a wedge shape that gets even thinner toward the front. But even the rear of the OmniBook is a bit thinner than a MacBook Air. There are two color choices for the aluminum OmniBook, the Silk Sand of the review unit and Eclipse Gray. And in each case the plastic keyboard keys are a lighter color than the body, giving it a nice contrasty look. Where the sides of the laptop are a shiny, brushed aluminum that scratches up over time, the surfaces are matte with an anti-fingerprint finish that only partially eliminates skin oils. It’s not as bad as the typical ThinkPad in that regard, but it’s still noticeable. Most of the other design touches are subtle, like the premium HP logo on the outside of the display lid and the classy and shiny OmniBook Ultra logo on the right wrist rest. But the blue pinhole light on the power button/key in the upper right of the keyboard is a curious decision. It’s overly bright, but at least you can’t see it when the laptop is closed. HP describes the OmniBook Ultra as the world’s most durably slim notebook, and its forge-stamped aluminum chassis survived 11 MIL-STD durability tests while also making it much easier to open the thing up for repairs and upgrades. The 14-inch 3K (2880 x 1800) multitouch OLED display panel that HP provides with the OmniBook Ultra is truly impressive. It nails all the OLED basics with glossy bright and vibrant colors and the deepest blacks, but it also delivers ultra-wide viewing angles, a 120 Hz variable refresh rate, low blue light capabilities, 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, and Gorilla Glass 3 protection while outputting 500 nits of brightness for SDR content and 1100 nits for HDR. The display still delights after four months of use. You can crank up the brightness to thwart reflections if necessary, but that’s rarely been necessary. It performs equally well across all the productivity, creator, software development, and gaming activities I engage in. The display’s bezels are notably small on the left and right sides, helping HP achieve a better-than-average 91 percent screen-to-body ratio. But the display doesn’t tilt back very far, and it’s not clear why. Most laptops I review have displays that can lay flat or nearly so, but this one doesn’t even come close. The OmniBook Ultra can be configured with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H, Core Ultra 9 386H, or Core Ultra X9 388H “Panther Lake” processor, the latter of which is Intel’s most impressive mobile offering to date. Each features a 16-core microprocessor with 4 performance cores, 8 efficient cores, and 4 low power efficient cores, and a 50 TOPS NPU. And each operates at a range of 15 to 80 watts depending on the load, with a 25-watt base power dissipation. But it’s with the integrated graphics where things get really interesting: The 356H and 386H both include 4-core Intel integrated graphics that are inline with the graphics in previous-generation Core Ultra Series 2 processors, while the X9 388H delivers the stunningly good 12-core Intel Arc B390 integrated GPU. It rivals the performance of dedicated graphics, and this is the processor that HP provided in the review unit. Depending on the processor choice, you can get an OmniBook Ultra with 16 or 32 GB of 9600 MT/s LPDDR5X RAM, and there are 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB PCIe Gen5 NVME M.2-based SSD storage options. The review unit provides 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. Day-to-day performance is terrific, obviously. But the performance can be breathtaking, too.Call of Duty: Black Ops 7runs at about 75 FPS at native resolution and the display quality is excellent. The dedicated Nvidia graphics inthe Lenovo ThinkPad P1 I recently reviewedare a step up, but the OmniBook Ultra delivers one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had with integrated graphics. I don’t have a laptop based on the latest generation AMD Zen 5 chip here in Mexico, but this looks and feels comparable. The detail I see is incredible. To keep this beast quiet and cool, HP uses active cooling via its first-ever compact vapor chamber design. From the outside, it’s all very familiar. The air intake fans are on the bottom, aided by rubber feet that stretch across much of the PC’s width while elevating it and providing a firm grip. And then the exhaust is along the rear of the lower deck, below the display hinge. Overall, it works very well. In typical usage, the hum of the fans is so low I can’t hear it, and it’s only during and right after gameplay sessions that the fan noise really kicks in, as expected. I love the rubber feet on the bottom, not just for the necessary air circulation, but because they not four individual pucks, so they work well on just about any surface. Connectivity couldn’t be more modern, with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. No issues there. Expansion is minimal but appropriate for the form factor and I love that HP put at least one USB-C port on each side of this laptop. There are three 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4/USB4 Type-C ports, two on the right and one on the left. And then a 3.5 mm combo headphone/microphone jack on the left. The OmniBook Ultra provides quad discrete speakers, but it’s really just a stereo speaker setup, with two speakers on the front left side and two on the front right side, both bottom firing. The sound is excellent, crisp, and loud, though it starts to distort above 90 percent volume or so. That’s fine: It can easily fill a room with sound well below that threshold. Combine the solid audio capabilities with the OLED display, and you get a nicely immersive experience for movies and other videos. HP provides OmniBook Ultra buyers with reasonable hybrid work capabilities via a 5 MP Windows Hello ESS-compatible webcam and dual-array microphones. There’s a manual privacy slider for the webcam, unfortunately placed over the camera, and the standard microphone mute toggle via a function key on the keyboard. The webcam is better than the microphones, but you can fiddle with a lot of configurations in the bundled Poly Studio app, a rare example of a PC maker actually providing additional value through software. If you have an HP computer or a compatible peripheral, it’s worth spending time in Poly Studio. The full-sized and backlit keyboard on the OmniBook Ultra doesn’t just look good, it also offers an excellent typing experience with excellent feedback and longer-than-usual key throws I did get used to. The individual keys are bigger and a bit more spaced out from each other compared to previous generation OmniBook Ultras, but I don’t recall what that was like. This is great keyboard, regardless. Well, except for one miscue. Unfortunately, the backlighting is a problem, in part because of the light color used on the keys. The OmniBook Ultra supports two levels of backlighting, but no automatic mode, and I found myself fidgeting with it a lot because the backlight color is so close to that of the keys that it often washed out the letters. But switching it off rarely helped matters because the brightness of the screen would likewise wash out the non-backlit keys too. I can touch-type, of course, but I found it curious how regularly I struggled to see the letters on the keys. The keyboard does have flex when some typing, especially in its center. Granted, I’m a heavy-handed typist, and to be fair, this flex didn’t seem to impact usage at all. The haptic multitouch touchpad is also excellent, though I did need to disable three-finger gestures because I’m clumsy enough to trigger that when I mean to scroll. Once I got past that minor hurdle, all was well. As a Copilot+ PC, the OmniBook Ultra offers the best-possible security experience thanks to its Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) facial recognition capabilities and the other underlying protections you get with this platform. But there’s no fingerprint reader, which I feel should be included with any premium laptop these days. HP also gives you presence sensing capabilities that automatically dim the screen when you look away, which is annoying. But its other functions—turning off the screen and signing you out when you leave, waking the PC when you approach (which then makes Windows Hello-based facial recognition instant and automatic), and detecting when someone else is looking at the screen over your shoulder—are excellent. And while this isn’t security-related, the OmniBook Ultra also offers posture sensing via the webcam, which is fairly unique. Like other recent HP PCs, the OmniBook Ultra is sustainably made, in this case with up to 80 percent recycled aluminum, over 40 percent recycled plastic overall, ocean-bound plastic in the speaker enclosures and bezels, recycled metal in the display lid and both panels in the keyboard deck, and post-consumer recycled materials in the keyboard keycaps and scissors, and keyboard plate. You can remove the bottom panel of the OmniBook Ultra easily using the four exposed Philips head screws and a plastic pry tool or, in a pinch, a butter knife. From there, you can easily access the battery, the M.2 SSD, the keyboard, and other system components. Only the RAM isn’t replaceable (by itself) or upgradeable because of the integrated design of the processor. The OmniBook Ultra weighs just 2.81 pounds, which is terrific for a 14-inch laptop, and its 12.25 x 8.49 x 0.29/0.42 inch form factor is notably thin and svelte. This laptop is a joy to travel with and I used it on the way to Mexico in January, on the flights to and from Acapulco, and, more recently, on bus rides to and from Cuernavaca. Helping matters, the battery life is excellent for an x64-based laptop: I averaged between 8.5 and 9 hours of uptime per charge over the past four months. The 70 watt-hour battery supports fast charging with a 50 percent charge in about 45 minutes. More notable, perhaps, is HP’s new slimline 65-watt GaN mini USB charger with its detachable cable and folding charging prongs. This rectangular charger is smaller and less awkward than previous HP chargers, and it somehow manages to be attractive in its own right too. That said, its rectangular design means it may have difficulty staying plugged into a loose wall socket, as in many hotels. Sadly, instant-on performance and reliability were predictably poor. This is typical for Intel-based systems, suggesting that the processor maker still hasn’t gotten past this endemic issue. As is the case with other recent Intel-based laptops, I never knew what to expect when I opened the laptop lid regardless of how long it had been since I last used it. But the most common outcome was a slow full-boot process rather than the instant-on experience one expects. Facial recognition can likewise be slow or non-working at times, forcing me to use a PIN since the laptop doesn’t provide a fingerprint reader. This may not be the ideal time to mention this, but I made a point of coming to Mexico with none of my Snapdragon-based favorite laptops, and I only had one Snapdragon X Plus-based laptop waiting for me here. My goal was to reacquaint myself with the Intel portable PC experience and see whether there have been any reliability improvements in recent months. There haven’t been, not that I can tell, but it is interesting how one just gets used to this behavior. It is just the way most laptops work, so it becomes normal. With that in mind, I wasn’t overly distressed by the experience each time I opened the laptop lid. Sometimes, it just took longer to boot up, basically. But this is an area in which both AMD and Intel, especially, need to improve. The experience on Snapdragon X is much more predictable and reliable. The OmniBook Ultra is a premium laptop, but it’s also a consumer laptop, and so HP has taken a few liberties with its software loadout. The only truly offensive preinstall is McAfee, which requires two app uninstalls, one in Settings and one in Control Panel. You get all the usual HP utilities, and at least two, HP Support Assistant and Poly Studio, are quite useful. Windows 11 Home is standard, as are all the additional Copilot+ PC features. These days, laptop pricing can fluctuate quite a bit because of ongoing component shortages and premium PCs, like this Copilot+ PC are impacted even more because of their higher-end processors, RAM, storage, and display panels. In the good news department, HP and its retailing partners often hold sales, and it’s wise to wait on one before buying this or any other PC or consumer electronics product. As I write this, the pickings are slim on the HP website: This was different just two days ago, but I now only see a single, non-configurable OmniBook Ultra model with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H processor, 16 GB of RAM, a 1 TB of storage costs about $1700. That’s roughly $400 more than I’d expect barring conditions, but it also doesn’t include the top-end CPU with the best GPU, and that would be my one condition for buying an Intel-based OmniBook Ultra. (HP sells Snapdragon X2-based models, too.) I don’t usually do this, but I also checked Amazon.com and Best Buy and didn’t come up with a single Intel-based OmniBook Ultra model for price comparisons. There’s a related OmniBook Ultra Flip, but it’s using the previous-generation Intel chips, and then the Snapdragon X2 versions. All too expensive. Good luck out there, this isn’t HP’s fault, but this is a terrible time to buy a laptop. Ignoring the pricing and availability issues as we must, the HP OmniBook Ultra is a terrific laptop for just about anyone. But it’s ideally suited for those who prize performance, style, and uptime, and should meet the needs of any productivity worker, creator, gamer, or developer. Intel’s Panther Lake platform, especially with the high-end GPU found in the review unit, is truly impressive, even with the usual reliability issues. And this laptop is a nearly perfect solution for those frequently on-the-go. This is one of my favorite laptops of 2026 so far, and I recommend it highly. Assuming, of course, you can find one and on sale. Pros ✔️ Handsome thin and light design ✔️ Bright, vibrant display ✔️ Incredible performance, especially for graphics ✔️ Excellent battery life for an x64 laptop ✔️ At least one USB-C port on each side Cons ❌ Typical Intel reliability issues ❌ Keyboard letters often hard to see

WaveletLM is a wavelet-based, attention-free language model that mixes tokens through learned lifting wavelet decomposition, a Fast Walsh-Hadamard Transform, per-scale gated spectral mixing with SwiGLU activation, an inverse FWHT, and wavelet reconstruction. Combined with expanded MLPs and sparse product-key memory, this yields an architecture with no attention and O(n log n) scaling in sequence length. InstallationTrainingInferenceSample GenerationsArchitectureResultsFuture PlansLicenseReferences Requires Python 3.10+, PyTorch 2.8+, and CUDA. Run: config.jsonreplicates the current best883M parameter WikiText-103 run, which requires 18,235 MiB to train. Key config options: Training logs, checkpoints, and configs are saved tologs/<dataset>_<timestamp>/. Results from all runs are tracked inruns.md. The full default run takes ~14h on an RTX 5090; dropepochsto 1 for a quick smoke test. Obtain weights fromHuggingFace, then usebest_model_pg-19.pt,best_model_wikitext-103.pt, or whichever weights file is desired as the checkpoint in the commands below. Thecurrent best PG-19 modelrequires 4,544 MiB for inference and generates at 28.3 tokens/s on a 5090. Thecurrent best WikiText-103 modelrequires 4,918 MiB for inference and generates at 28.8 tokens/s on a 5090. Recommended commands: Default generation: Additional options: Can run all strategies together with--strategiesor individual ones. Use--helpfor a complete list. Use all inference strategies: Some strategies options: The--strategiesflag enables: Near-lossless uniform 8-bit PTQ: PTQ effects: Selections from thePG-19 best run's generations log: Sample Awith prompt "The history of": The history of the world is a long and painful one. It has been so much neglected, that it may be said to have become known through all ages; but its influence is not confined solely to the individual or class, nor even to those who are in any way connected with it. The first thing which strikes us on entering into this subject is, that there is no other mode by which we can bring ourselves to do justice to our fellow-men; for what is more extraordinary than that they should be able to find out the real character of those whom we are about to see? If such were their intentions, as I have before stated, then it would be very difficult indeed for them to keep themselves alive at the present moment; because, if we take away from them anything that makes life pleasant, or comfortable, or agreeable, they must give up all thoughts of it. Sample Bwith prompt "She turned to him and said": She turned to him and said, "I have been thinking a great deal about you. I know that your father is a very good man; but he would not give me his consent if I were to marry him. But it will be all the same with me." He looked at her as though she had spoken to him out of a book which was lying on the table. When he spoke again there came into her face the expression of a most intense earnestness--a look of deep emotion. It seemed to him that she felt for one moment as if she could read his soul through this wonderful eyes: they were full of tenderness and affection, and she knew that in them lay love's highest hope and joy. Then she rose and walked slowly back to the house, leaving him alone with the dead. CHAPTER XXXV. A CONFESSION OF ROMANCE. Sample Cwith prompt "'Beware the High Elf mage,' exclaimed Antimour...": 'Beware the High Elf mage,' exclaimed Antimour. 'Although a novice, I sense much arcane affinity within him.' Then he added: 'You have been taught to read and write; but you are now in the seventh heaven of bliss!' 'I am not so old as that, my lord,' replied the astrologer; 'but there is no reason why I should be happy without you.' The astrologer shook his head doubtfully. 'There is nothing for it, then,' said he; 'for the present at least we will talk about the matter. Meanwhile I must tell thee how thou didst come into this world. In what way didst thou escape from thine enemies?' 'By means of some magic wand which I possessed,' answered the magician. Since PG-19 contains data from 1919 and earlier, this prompt is out of distribution. It uses post-Tolkien fantasy diction which the model routes to the closest pre-1919 register: Edwardian fairy-tale and Arabian Nights prose. Sample Dwith prompt "The spaceship finally arrived in the Alpha Centauri system": The spaceship finally arrived in the Alpha Centauri system. It was found that this would be very much like a double-acting motor, but it was not to be compared with one of these machines which had been invented by Professor Thomson and constructed for him by himself at his own expense. In order to make use of such a machine he must have an efficient engine capable of performing its work as soon as possible. [Illustration: FIGS. 1, 2, 3 and 4.--DIAGRAM OF ELECTRICAL DICTIONARY INVENTION. A simple form of the principle shown is shown on the accompanying diagram (Fig. 7), which represents a rectangular piece of wire attached to the base of a cylinder. A second out-of-distribution prompt. The model has no training data on spaceships or interstellar travel, so it routes these to the closest pre-1919 register: a Victorian mechanical-engineering treatise with a figure caption. Sample Ewith prompt "The soldiers marched" - naive sampling (no--strategies, defaulttemp=1.0, andtop_p=0.95): The soldiers marched in uniform. Ten minutes later, Mr. Farrell approached Mr. Talbot and the captain of police. He had been told that he must start immediately for New York, and sent for his son, Mr. Waters, to meet him there. With this he departed on his return, leaving his wife in such distress at the selfish desertion of her husband and son as to despair of recovering the stolen property. But both Frank and Harry were deeply anxious about her. They knew that their father would not thank them for killing the lady with whom they had arrived; and when he told them how it was done she resolutely turned away her head. And One-shot naive sample (without--strategies). Naive samples retain more of the model's raw distribution and tend to mix domains more loosely. Sample Fwith prompt "The history of" - naive sampling (no--strategies, defaulttemp=1.0, andtop_p=0.95): The history of her interest in the modern world during this quarter, has been given to the journal in which she appeared during her stay; and I could mention no names more memorable than those connected with the several sessions at this distinguished lady's house. In 1856, Mr. Ramsey began the voyage along one of the many channels by which Boston had heretofore eluded him, with very valuable additions to his papers. On January 30, 1833, a small packet arrived at Charleston from Jamaica, designed for the benefit of George (afterwards Lord) Wilmot, an officer in the American army--a man well qualified to fulfill all the duties of a seaman as before stated. He remained at Point Cotterand until October, 1827, when he died in his lodgings, without either pecuniary credit or pecuniary obligations. At the close of 1805 Mrs. Fry visited us. She had previously known her husband, who held an appointment within a few miles of Camden Town. Randomly selected naive sample (without--strategies) out of 20. Selections from theWikiText-103 best run's generations log: Sample Awith prompt "The history of": The history of the city is reflected in its architecture, which includes the historic Old Town and New Castle County Courthouse Square Historic District. The building was designed by John H. Stevens, who also designed the Albany-Fulton Celebration in 1906 and built a steel-hulled shipyard on the lake shore. In 1909, Fort Wayne became home to the first naval base for military aviation in the United States. The Navy Yard at the former Naval Air Station Pensacola (now known as the Georgia Tech Research Institute), located on the campus' eastern boundary, was constructed in 1925–1926 near the site of the original schoolhouse. Sample Bwith prompt "The album was released": The album was released on August 25, 2007 by Sony Music Entertainment and features several songs from the record including "Never Say Die", "The Show", "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and a cover of "I Can Only Imagine (But You Are Not Alone)". In 2009, Tyler performed at the Rock in Rio festival held in Lisbon, Portugal; a performance which included performances of his own compositions by Queen Latifah and Ali Zardari. On July 1, 2010 he sang "O Holy Night" during the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony at London Olympic Stadium as part of the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. Sample Cwith prompt "The species was first described": The species was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 as Agaricus adustus. The genus name is derived from the Latin words perma "to tie", and pous ("like") means "with a large head". In 1821, French mycologists Jean-Baptiste de Lacaille placed it in section Cricetae of the order Carnivora. He later renamed it Spongiforma punctata after the Greek kribensis. P. nigriceps was originally classified under its current binomial name Sirmuellera speciosa; however, this has been rejected on the grounds that Lactarius deterrimus may not be closely related to Boletus edulis or other similar fungi in general. Sample Dwith prompt "Born in": Born in the city, and the people who have been living there. The town's only synagogue is located on a hill overlooking the street; it was built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A museum dedicated to the history of Jewish culture in Israel opened in 2008 at the former Beth Elohim building. It features an original painting from the Al-Fakhri Mosque that hangs in the Temple. This is one of four mosques in the district named after Abraham Lincoln. Hebron Church (Hebrew: בית לחברג 'ה) is believed to be the oldest part of Jerusalem's Old City. The name means "holy place" or "place of prayer" in Islamic law and Arabic texts dating back to prehistory as early as the 6th century BCE. Sample Ewith prompt "The soldiers marched" and naive sampling (no--strategies, defaulttemp=1.0, andtop_p=0.95): The soldiers marched through a number of hiding places and ambushes . These were the first major engagements that took place during this time — only one is known from sources , although most historians agree the number differs in details . ) The rebel army commenced its march from Livno on 29 October , followed by their advance towards Palermo on 21 November . So – when there was some initial resistance to that tactic – General Guy de Croix — Enghien 's men started gathering at dawn on September 20 , but most would not arrive until midday . Their combined forces divided into two columns , with reinforcements arriving from all sides within hours . The main Sample Fwith prompt "The history of" and naive sampling (no--strategies, defaulttemp=1.0, andtop_p=0.95): The history of the tropical cyclone is unknown, but official records suggest it formed on May 31. It developed into a tropical storm later that day. After turning to the northeast, on September 20 Huron strengthened into a hurricane while east-southeast of Bermuda. During that time, Hurricane Humberto destroyed another ship in a prolonged action. In late October, Ione crossed into the eastern Gulf of Mexico; however, it reintensified slightly and later peaked with winds of 100 mph (160 km/h) as it drifted through western Cuba. Note the typical failure mode with the naive generation: register-coherent meteorological prose, but the model freely interleaves the names of multiple unrelated real storms (Huron, Humberto, Ione) within a single passage. Without--strategies, the model is prevented from employing a more conservative sampling regime. Learnable lifting wavelet decomposition: Haar-initialized predict/update MLPs (Linear → GELU → Dropout → Linear, hidden_dim = C) decompose each sequence into multi-scale coefficients per block, trained end-to-end with causality preserved via zero-padded dilation. Constrained to act as predict/update steps within the lifting scheme rather than arbitrary functions, with mechanical inversion (same MLPs applied in reverse order with sign-flip) — perfect reconstruction is structurally guaranteed regardless of learned weights, leaving them free to learn deviations from classical Haar during training without compromising signal recovery. ~16.8M params per (predict, update) pair at C=2048, shared across layers viashared_lifting_weights. Decompose/reconstruct weights are also shared per layer; untying them had negligible performance impact while saving parameters. Fast Walsh-Hadamard Transform (FHT): a fixed orthogonal O(C log C) cross-channel rotation replacing attention's channel-mixing role. Cost is independent of sequence length. Per-scale gated spectral mixer (SwiGLU): mixes each wavelet scale independently in Walsh-Hadamard space via a gated linear layer. Runs in fixed O(S²) per layer for S scales (S = levels + 1), versus attention's O(N²) in sequence length. Expanded MLP (expansion ≥ 20): Hidden layer width multiplier for the MLP layers. Logarithmic relationship with BPB. Decompose bypass: a causal cumulative mean of pre-decompose hidden states, projected per-scale and added as bias to the post-decompose coefficients. Per-Layer Embedding: a learned per-channel residual of the token embedding added at each block, letting deeper blocks reach back to the input representation. Product Key Memory / Fast-Weight Product Key Memory: sparse key-value memory modules complementing the dense MLP, with optional inference-time fast-weight updates. Low-Rank Factorization: a rank-rU·V^Tperturbation added to the spectral mixer; rank=4 yields a measurable BPB improvement at trivial parameter cost. Exponential Parametrization: reparameterizes mixer weights throughexp(), stabilizing training under high learning rates that would otherwise NaN. Cross-scale gating (routing mode): a learned identity-initialized (S, S) routing matrix that mixes per-scale inputs before each gate, enabling conditional cross-scale interactions. Per-scale mixer widths: asymmetric per-scale mixer capacity (coarse scales full width, fine scales reduced). At[1, 1, 1, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5]: small BPB improvement + ~23% per-epoch speedup. Wavelet crawl: softmax-weighted mixture of K candidate dilations per level around the base2^l, letting the model discover off-power-of-2 receptive fields. K=3 (±1) is the stable sweet spot. Shared lifting weights: one lifting wavelet module shared across all blocks. Essentially free on BPB; cuts training VRAM by ~5–10% at L=2. Looped blocks (Universal Transformer-style): one shared block applied K times in place of L stacked blocks. Reduces BPB at fixed parameter count; compute is usually better spent on more epochs of the stacked model. It is important to note that WaveletLM hasnotbeen fully optimized: My current run budget is limited. Other researchers are encouraged to train the model with these changes to more accurately gauge its potential performance. SeeAreas for Improvementbelow for more info on optimization, andFuture Plansfor ways to push WaveletLM further post-release. All models in this table were trained and evaluated on PG-19. Most use SentencePiece tokenization; Hyena uses GPT-2 BPE. WaveletLM was trained for one epoch only at the smallest context length of any entry. Context and epoch derivations from source papers: † 27.40 sliding-window PPL. See thePG-19 pre-release runfor full details and therun log. Increased regularization and training time are in theFuture Planssection. ‡ Hyena was trained withblock_size=16384(64× WaveletLM's) and 8 epochs (8× WaveletLM's). It is also incredibly efficient parameter-wise with 153M vs. WaveletLM's 807M. Increasing both block size and epochs for WaveletLM while decreasing parameters are some of theFuture Plans. Comparison numbers for both datasets are sourced from their respective papers. See References below. * Both trained and evaluated on WikiText-103 only (direct comparison to WaveletLM). GPT-2 BPE was used by WaveletLM for tokenization. † Best of 3 seeds PPL of 23.749 with mean PPL of 23.818. Significant parameter reduction is planned post-release in theFuture Planssection. Seeruns.mdfor a record of all training runs, logs, configs, and benchmark results with fully-reproducible point-in-time code snapshots. Longer training time, more regularization, and parameter compression are the surest ways to immediately improve the model's performance. More training time: More research and more resources are needed to uncover the effects of longer training. Regularization: WaveletLM is vastly underregularized, with a 0.8 train/val loss gap at 5+ epochs. Dropout and weight decay parameter sweeps are limited by budget and involve tuningweight_decaydropout_embedding,dropout_projection,dropout_mixer,dropout_mlp, anddropout_lm_headin tandem. Parameter compression: Of WaveletLM's 883M parameter total, around 55% (488M) live in two highly compressible components: dense MLPs (335.6M) and product-key memory modules (PKM: 76M + FwPKM: 76M). Further work is needed to determine the degree of compressivity of each during training, which makes it complementary to PTQ. Result:L=1 and L=2 reach nearly identical training-loss minimums at matched compute, but L=1 has 0.15 worse val loss. Seeplans/single_layer_waveletlm.mdandplans/findings.mdfor the full analysis. Decision:L=1 becomes the iteration platform for upcoming ablations, capped at E=5 (val loss saturates there) due to iteration time. L=2 will be re-benchmarked once the L=1-tuned regularization recipe is applied retroactively. Result:Parameters reduced by ~42% at minimal BPB cost. Made context longer with freed VRAM (bs=16384: stable training, -34% VRAM usage, modest val regression attributable tolevels=5leaving 9 of 14 possible decomposition levels unused). Seeplans/findings.md,plans/other_post_release_plans.md §8, andruns.mdfor the full analysis and per-test numbers. Decision:Reduce parameters, useblock_size=16384, and test increasing levels next. Result:levels=7wins the L=1 / bs=16384 /wavelet_crawl=falsesweep at 5-epoch BPB sliding1.0974(val 3.3605, 392.91M params, 23.4 GiB train VRAM).levels=11andlevels=9NaN in fp16 AMP under every stability fix attempted;levels=13OOMs withoutgradient_checkpointing. The FWHT is orthogonal (norm-preserving), so the runaway is upstream: likely the lifting cascade, residual stream feedback, or Adagrad'seps=2e-13amplifying sparse-gradient updates. Disablingdecompose_bypass/_cross_windowhad no stability effect at L=11 and no BPB cost in the Boolean ablation; both should default tofalsegoing forward (validated below). The two unblockers are lower peak LR (rejected due to performance impact) and a different optimizer (deferred to theOptimizer Sweep). Decision:shiplevels=7;levels ≥ 9deferred until the optimizer sweep. analyze_lifting.pyon the L=1 / levels=7 / 5-epoch winner (logs/wikitext-103_2026-05-03_02-13-07/best_model.pt) confirms strongdiagonal dominanceacross the four lifting matrix types — average diagonal Frobenius energy is71.80% / 76.28% / 72.54% / 48.73%forpredict_nets[L].0/predict_nets[L].3/update_nets[L].0/update_nets[L].3respectively, vs a 0.0488% random baseline (~1000-1500× above random for three of four types). Generic low-rank is weak (r99 ≈ 1875-1950 out of 2048), soW ≈ D + U·V^T(diagonal + small low-rank correction) at r=16 captures the structure at31× compression per matrix(135K vs 4.19M params). Cross-level similarity is moderate — average pairwise cosine0.738 / 0.774 / 0.754for the three well-behaved types — suggesting group-wise sharing across levels (2-3 groups for 7 levels) as an alternative or complement, saving ~12.58M params per matrix type. The outlierupdate_nets[L].3(48.73% diag energy, 0.537 avg cosine) needs gentler treatment — r=64 instead of r=16, and group sharing is less viable. The 28 lifting weight tensors total 117.44M params and are already tied betweenlifting_waveletandlifting_reconstruct.decompose(PyTorch parameter sharing), so there's no double-count to recover. Method: derive strategies per-matrix-type (D + UV^T at r=16 for the three diagonal-dominant types, r=64 for the outlier; group sharing as a layered second pass), test each individually for 1 epoch, combine winners (those within ±0.018 BPB of 1.0974) for a 5-epoch confirmation, and keep the changes if final BPB stays within ±0.0015. Successful application would shrink lifting from 117.44M → ~5-7M params (~94-96%), bringing the total model from392.91M → ~280M. The mixer'slow_rank(controlling the U, V parallel correction insideGatedSpectralMixer) has been at 4 since the initiallow_rankablation found 4 → 16 gave a marginal -0.0012 BPB gain at C=512. At the current L=7 / Cp=2048 / per_scale_mixer_widths=[1,1,1,1,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5] regime, the mixer's mainLinear(2048, 2048)is 4.19M per scale; low_rank=4 contributes only 16K per scale (~128K total across 8 scales) — negligible relative to the main matrix. Sweep low_rank ∈ {16, 128, 1024} at 1 epoch each as a follow-on to the (E5) finding that mixer width contributes nothing measurable past the headline; if width is saturated,rankof the parallel correction may be the under-explored axis. The 1024 endpoint matches the main mixer matrix's capacity and tests whether "rank as alternative to width" is a real trade-off. Reference: 1-epoch L=7 baseline at BPB sliding 1.2361. Pass criterion: any ablation within ±0.018 BPB tolerance is taken to a 5-epoch confirmation. If 1024 wins, also test 2048 to verify saturating-at-full-rank behavior. Re-run the L=1 / levels=7 / 5-epoch winner (logs/wikitext-103_2026-05-03_02-13-07, BPB sliding 1.0974) withdecompose_bypass=falseanddecompose_bypass_cross_window=false. The Boolean ablation table at L=1 / E=1 found both within ±0.0015 BPB of baseline (within noise), and the Test 5 sweep showed that toggling them at L=1 / E=1 / bs=16384 also had no measurable effect on either training trajectory or NaN onset. If the 5-epoch L=1 / levels=7 run reproduces within ±0.0015 BPB of 1.0974 with both off, both flags become permanentfalsedefaults, and the running-mean ×history_gainsmachinery can be removed from the forward path entirely (a small step-time win and one fewer growth-prone accumulator in the residual stream). If a regression > ±0.0015 BPB appears at this scale, leave them at the headline-baselinetrueand revisit only after the optimizer sweep clears up the L=11 instability picture. Single 5-epoch run at the existing winning configuration; ~6.5h on a 5090. Re-tune the five dropout values (dropout_lm_head,dropout_mlp,dropout_mixer,dropout_projection, anddropout_embedding) once model parameters are reduced from above. A doubled-dropout ablation at the prior baseline gave -0.0221 BPB. This is larger than the projected BPB increase from parameter reduction. A true dropout sweep may surpass the gap. Sweep is to be conducted at L=1 first (faster iteration, more sensitive to regularization signal). The resulting optimal values will then be retroactively applied to L=2 (and any other higher-layer formulations) for performance measurement and benchmarking to verify whether L=2's (or higher level's) val loss also improves under the L=1-tuned regularization recipe. Headline numbers accordingly. Re-tuneweight_decay. Current value (1e-6) was only tested alongside 1e-3. More values must to be attempted (likely slightly higher is best). Test the contribution of the FWHT slot in the per-scale mixer versus having no transform, having a Hartley transform, using a DCT-II/III pair, or employing a butterfly-parametrized learned orthogonal mixer. Measures whether FWHT specifically is necessary, or whether any orthogonal mixer of similar structure (or none at all, with the learned embedding in place) achieves equivalent performance. Seeplans/other_post_release_plans.md §10for the full design and proposed test. Throughput per token of context flattens pastbs≈1024despite linear-in-N theoretical scaling — a memory-bandwidth wall, not algorithmic. Useprofile_step.pyto attribute step time across architectural components atbs ∈ {256, 1024, 4096, 16384}, then target whichever crosses 25% atbs=16384. Candidate quick wins: fused SwiGLU kernel (Liger / Unsloth / xformers — drop-in for the MLP block),torch.compile(mode='reduce-overhead')for CUDA Graphs capture, fused Adagrad, and (architectural) low-rank lifting predict/update networks. Seeplans/other_post_release_plans.md §12for the full menu and decision rule. Generalize the lifting wavelet decomposition from 1D over the token axis to 2D over the joint (batch, token) axis pair. When training proceeds in document-sequential order, the batch axis carries the same multi-scale temporal structure as the token axis, and the same wavelet machinery applies to both. This requires reorganization of the current batch sampling method into a sequential batch processing method, since batches may not be IID with respect to each other. As one example, consider series of novels in PG-19 with temporal plot dependencies between books. Randomly sampling batches breaks this temporal relationship. Using 2D wavelets is a convenient way to enforce and encode temporal relationships at all levels within the model. Seeplans/two_d_wavelet_sequential_training.mdfor the full design. The PG-19 run above was trained for a single epoch using the WikiText-optimized config. Published baselines for other models on the same dataset were likely trained for many more epochs or with much more effective compute. Once it is possible, the first post-release goal will be to train on PG-19 for 2 epochs, and loss permitting, 5 epochs, in order to better gauge language modeling on a large dataset at the current parameter size. The best WaveletLM config trained on Pile-ArXiv, BookCorpusOpen, OpenWebText, and other datasets to gauge their performance. Side-by-side benchmarks against Hyena, Transformer, Mamba, RWKV, and other modern architectures on WikiText-103 at matched compute and fully optimized. Adagrad (lr=0.01) is the validated optimizer for the released model but has not been directly compared against properly-tuned alternatives. WaveletLM is matrix-parameter-heavy (MLP at expansion=20 produces Linear(2048, 40960) weights, plus per-scale mixers and lifting matrices), soMuon (Jordan et al., 2025)- which orthogonalizes matrix gradient updates via Newton-Schulz iteration and reports 1.5–2× wall-clock speedups vs AdamW on small transformers - is a strong candidate. Plan: a 2-phase sweep (1-epoch LR screening + 5-epoch finalist validation) across Adagrad, AdamW, and Muon. Even a 30% wall-clock speedup compounds across every subsequent ablation and the B200 scale-up.Once the per-optimizer best hyperparameters are identified, retest each onlevels=9andlevels=11at bs=16384 to see whether the new optimizer (and its tuned learning rate) clears the fp16 NaN cliff that blocked higher levels under Adagrad — the same sweep that now ships levels=7 may swing to a deeper optimum once a different update rule is in place. Seeplans/other_post_release_plans.md §6. Thecurrent PTQ pathdequantizes int8 weights to fp16 insideforward()and runs a standard fp16 matmul, which pays the dequant cost every step with no bandwidth win - hence the 12% generation slowdown and the fact that sub-8-bit variants compress identically to 8-bit on disk. SwappingQuantizedLinear/QuantizedEmbeddingfor fused packed-weight kernels (Marlin W8A16 / W4A16, CUTLASSi8gemm, bitsandbytes, Triton for the embedding lookup) fixes both: storage scales with bit-width, and each matmul reads half or a quarter as many bytes. Expected generation at batch=1 (fp16 baseline 28.8 tok/s) is~1.4–1.6× fasterfor fused uniform 8-bit and~1.8–2.2× fasterfor fused mixed 8/4/2, with BPB unchanged. Seeruns.mdfor the full plan. A WaveletLM-native architecture worth exploring: the wavelet decomposition and reconstruction stay shared across nodes, but the FWHT slot in each per-scale mixer is replaced by N parallel orthogonal-transform paths (FWHT, DHT, DCT-II/III, learned butterfly orthogonals). Each node decomposes the wavelet coefficients through a different "prism" in terms of its own orthogonal basis, then a per-node mixer learns basis-specific gated interactions. Finally, node-specific inverse transforms bring outputs back to the shared wavelet coefficient space for recombination. The result is multi-spectral mixing that potentially captures structure that no single basis would, with shared scaffolding keeping per-step compute increase modest (~5-15% for N=4 since the mixer slot is small relative to MLP). This is architecturally distinct from the existingmultinodal_enabledmode (which ensembles full-cell copies at the LM head) — the multi-transform split happensinsidea single model. Rationale (conjectural):If multi-transform parallelization improves results, then the most plausible mechanism is that each orthogonal basis represents the channel-axis features in a different coordinate system simultaneously. A Walsh basis groups features by binary-symmetry pattern, a cosine basis groups them by smoothness, and a learned-orthogonal basis groups them by whatever residual structure gradient descent discovers. The same input is losslessly rotated through all bases in parallel, and the combiner weights them per-scale based on which "perspective" matters most for the signal. Standard transformer attention has no direct analog because (Q, K, V) projections conflate "the lens you use" with "the weights you compute" into a single learned operation.With a semantic embedding in particular (using plain-language, human-readable feature dimensions), this may make interpretability more tractable and efficient:a per-node, per-token-pair similarity score in the rotated basis answers "what does node K think these two tokens have in common?", making it possible to trace why two tokens are close or far depending on the conceptual lens/transform applied. The wavelet decomposition continues to handle sequence-axis multi-scale structure, and the multi-basis nodes add feature-axis multi-perspective structure, factorizing the two cleanly. We don't yet know whether this is the actual mechanism if it increases performance, but if it does, testing this hypothesis directly becomes the natural follow-up. Seeplans/multi_transform_parallelization.mdfor the full design, the four-node reference lineup, and the prerequisite ablation (per-scale mixer transform ablation inother_post_release_plans.md §10). An optional replacement for the learned token embedding is asemantic embedding, where each dimension is a plain-language feature (e.g. "is this token a noun?", "is this token associated with anger?", "corpus frequency in deceptive contexts") and each token or n-gram is a vector of values across those dimensions. WaveletLM is structurally well-suited for this: the spectral mixer can operate directly on vectorized human-readable features, and multi-scale decomposition lets the same concept be processed at different temporal granularities. The expected tradeoff is improved interpretability at a small performance cost, potentially recovered or even improved via n-gram tokens and careful feature selection for the dimensions. Seeplans/reincorporate_large_semantic_embedding.mdfor the full design, including open questions on coefficient assignment methods: one-hot/binary, LLM-scored, human-rated, or corpus-derived. Standing commitment regardless of intermediate results:once both multi-transform parallelization and the semantic embedding are independently validated, combine them. The combined configuration is the unique regime in which input dimensions are human-readable, each transform node represents those features in a distinct mathematically-grounded coordinate system (a different orthogonal basis), every transform is invertible, and sequence-axis (wavelet) and feature-axis (multi-transform) structures factorize cleanly. Even if multi-transform is marginally suboptimal vs single-transform variants (mathematically unlikely, since multi-transform strictly contains the single-transform case as N=1, so that the combiner gate would simply prefer the first transform in a multi-transform situation), the combined configuration uniquely enables per-node, per-token-pair similarity scores in named feature coordinates and direct probing of "what does node K think these tokens have in common?" This combined configuration's value is qualitatively different from either component alone, and is not to be deprioritized in favor of incremental BPB wins on simpler variants. Replacing the parameter-free cumulative running mean with a data-dependent EMA (decompose_bypass_ema) gained -0.30 nats at 1 epoch, but regressed at 5 epochs (BPB 1.0226 vs 1.0201). The inversion likely due to short-horizon forgetting and learned gate overfitting. Post-release plan: develop freeze-gate/bias correction probes and alternative formulations with a selective SSM bypass as fallback. Seeplans/ema_post_release.md. WaveletLM supports a baseline product-of-experts mode where multiple independent full-cell copies process the input in parallel with feature bagging and logit averaging. Enable withmultinodal_enabled: truein the config. This mode may require stability adjustments such as a lower learning rate withstable_parametrizationenabled, and acts as an as-yet underexplored capacity/scalability lever — a capstone for pure scale-up once the rest of the architectural roadmap settles. Distinct fromMulti-Transform Parallelizationabove (which parallelizes inside a single model at the FWHT slot); the PoE mode parallelizes whole models. This existing mode and broader multi-expert techniques (sparse MoE, mutual learning, weight averaging, Git Re-Basin, & ensemble distillation) are surveyed inplans/multinodal_training_techniques.md. Conditional on the architectural research roadmap above (multi-transform parallelization, dropout sweep, semantic embedding, combined interpretability compound) producing meaningful gains, scale up the validated architecture to B200-class hardware. The 883M RTX 5090 headline run scales up naturally to: The goal is a 10–15B parameter configuration, trained individually on WikiText-103 and PG-19, and also on a multi-dataset mix of WikiText-103, PG-19, Pile-ArXiv, BookCorpusOpen, TinyStories, & OpenWebText. Inference would fit on a single RTX 4090 at fp16 and roughly half the VRAM withuniform 8-bit PTQ. Seeruns.mdfor the pending run entry. Seeplans/other_post_release_plans.mdfor info on each. Apache License 2.0 Poli et al. "Hyena Hierarchy: Towards Larger Convolutional Language Models." arXiv:2302.10866, 2023. PG-19 result on page 20: Hyena 153M reaches 14.6 test PPL with 16k context length, 8 epochs, GPT-2 BPE tokenization.↩ Hawthorne et al. "General-purpose, long-context autoregressive modeling with Perceiver AR." arXiv:2202.07765, 2022.↩ Hutchins et al. "Block-Recurrent Transformers." arXiv:2203.07852, 2022.↩ Rae et al. "Compressive Transformers for Long-Range Sequence Modelling." arXiv:1911.05507, 2019. (PG-19 dataset introduction; reports both Compressive Transformer and Transformer-XL on PG-19.)↩↩2 Radford et al. "Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners." OpenAI, 2019.↩↩2↩3↩4 Dai et al. "Transformer-XL: Attentive Language Models Beyond a Fixed-Length Context." arXiv:1901.02860, 2019.↩↩2 Gu et al. "Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces." arXiv:2111.00396, 2021.↩

Finally on Saturday the NFL got to the real meat-and-potatoes for diehard fans of the Draft. How did the Colts final 6 picks of the NFL Draft grade out? The Colts got a potential starter in Jalen Farmer at the beginning of Day 3. Farmer was one of the best athletes in the offensive line class and a 2 year starter for Kentucky. He uses his quick feet to be a weapon in zones and pulls in the run game, and hits like a truck when he gets his hands on defenders. His strength also shows up in pass with a solid core strength and powerful anchor, allowing just a 0.5% pressure rate in 2025. Farmer does need to develop his agility to mirror pass rushers and needs to clean up his strike aiming and hand fighting technique to become a better pass protector at the NFL level. He also needs to keep driving his feet to help finish blocks instead of relying on initial contact. He also has little versatility as he played 0 snaps outside of Right Guard in college. Still with his tools there is a good chance that with proper coaching from Tony Sporano Jr. he can clean things up and become a valuable NFL starter. He was drafted close to his big board ranking but the pick isn’t in the A tier due to other premium needs (DE with Dani Dennis-Sutton, WR with Skyler Bell and Elijah Sarratt) still unaddressed and a few players at other needs (Kaleb Elarms-Orr at LB, Kieonte Scott and Jalon Kilgore at nickel) rated higher on the big board. But with the run on Offensive Linemen in this draft and the Colts nearing a tier drop off in Guard talent the Farmer pick still makes plenty of sense. Bryce Boettcher was not one of the players I was expecting at this range. I liked him as a Round 5-6 Graded WILL LB, but the market for coverage WILL LBs was drying up quick. The only player I had over him in that role available at the time was Kyle Louis, but it appears the NFL (or at least the team that drafted him) projected him to be a Box Safety rather than a Linebacker. With Louis technically in a different position (that the Colts already addressed with the AJ Haulcy pick in Round 3) the Boettcher pick makes sense with how the board turned out. Boettcher is a good coverage LB scoring in the 92nd percentile in PFF coverage grade and allowing just 204 yards in coverage along with getting a pick and a trio of pass deflections. He is a high energy player who can help shore up the middle of the field coverage while providing some blitz value and run sideline to sideline to defend the run game. He might not be the best athlete or the most effective block shedder but he gets to his spots quickly with effort and instincts. For the Colts, Boettcher should compete for starting snaps at WILL with Akeem Davis-Gaither. He looks to be a strong fit alongside CJ Allen long term with his energy and coverage skills. Another board reach, but I can’t say that George Gumbs isn’t an intruiging prospect. A new convert to the DE position, as recently as 2022 Gumbs was on Offense as a Tight End/Wide Receiver. However since 2023 he has been a Defensive End and has quickly developed a good variety of effective counters to win his rushes. He is a high end athlete with athletic testing scores comparable to Myles Garrett (albeit with 30 less lbs. on his frame, thus lowering the RAS score), and the tape backs up his exciting combination of burst, bend, and agility. His issues lie in his struggles to win off of his initial move despite his quick first step. He is still learning at the position and has issues in edge setting at his size in the run game. He struggles to anchor effectively and can get swallowed up by blockers. Still he is an interesting finesse designated pass rusher project for the Colts to try to develop. He was able to get a 12% Pressure Rate in his two years at Florida despite his newness to not just the position but defense as a whole. However if the Colts wanted a DE, Joshua Jacobs was available with a grade 3 rounds higher than Gumbs Jr. on my board. Still a reach, but a fun prospect to take a chance on his development long term at a low cost. George Gumbs Jr. might be freak athlete prototype for his position, but Caden Curry is the high production and polish prospect with more underwhelming physical tools. In fact he ranked highest in the Big10 in PFF grade and had a 15.3% pressure rate with 11 sacks in 2025. Curry wins with a strong array of pass rush techniques, constant high effort, a strong anchor, and surprising flexibility for his size. He is a good not great level athlete testing wise, but he maximized his production in a variety of ways and roles for the star studded Buckeyes Defense in 2025. Curry has shown to be a strong run defender and can drop back into coverage effectively while having the size to move around the line at times. Such versatility made him a valuable piece of the puzzle at Columbus. The biggest concern with Curry is that he is a historic outlier in arm length at Defensive End. Many draft prognostications had Rueben Bain falling out of the top 5 (and he went 15th) solely because of his 1st percentile arm length at 30.875” and had Cashius Howell falling for his 30.25” arms. Caden Curry is an even bigger outlier at 30.125” arms, which is 0th percentile and the shortest in the class. Unlike the prior two he doesn’t have the same level of freaky athleticism to balance out this concern, hence why he is a Day 3 prospect. Still the local Hoosier from Center Grove is set to get an opportunity for his favorite team and was drafted right around where he was graded, so it’s hard to hate this double dip at a premium need position with this level of productivity. McGowan brings a very appealing skillset for the Colts as a backup to Jonathan Taylor. His powerful frame with 4.49 speed and slashing playstyle with solid vision gives him the ability to carry a solid workload in the event of Taylor needing a breather or being out for an extended period of time, and his strong anchor holds up very well in pass protection on 3rd downs. He keeps his head on a swivel for blitzers or rushers, and cleans up well to keep his QB from getting hit. Overall he is a power rusher who has impressive top speed for his size and can generate solid Yards After Contact from running through tacklers. McGowan is an older prospect at 24 and played at 6 colleges in his 6 seasons after high school. This is in large part due to an early arrest in his career that Ballard addressed in his opening press conference, where he said he was a second chance guy and was willing to extend that opportunity to McGowan. He spent time at Texas College and Butler Community College from 2021-2023 before rejoining FBS with New Mexico State. He reunites with his Kentucky teammate Jalen Farmer on the Colts. On the field Farmer is not the most elusive runner and has more build up acceleration. He has a strong top speed and can maintain it well linearly, but isn’t especially quick or shifty. Best used on inside runs or wide zones so he can get a head of steam going downhill or to the corner. For a Colts team in need of depth behind Taylor, McGowan is a good value pick who should compete with DJ Giddens as the top backup Running Back. Perhaps one of the best value picks in the entire draft of any team. Deion Burks was a top 100 player on my board and in checking the big boards of my fellow media colleagues via MockDraftDatabase, he was inside the top 100 of every big board of the pre-draft cycle since the 2025 season ended. He was my 3rd highest graded WR heading into Day 3 behind only UCONN’s Skyler Bell and Indiana’s Elijah Sarratt, but was the 19th and last wideout taken on Day 3 (WR36 taken overall). To get such a widely well regarded player at the very end of the draft is a steal tantamount to a theft of the Mona Lisa. Deion Burks is one of the fastest players in the draft class with a 4.3 timed speed at the Combine. He has strong acceleration and deceleration, with quick and sharp cuts in his routes. Burks can operate at all 3 levels of the field as his speed offers him the opportunity to stack corners vertically (albeit some technical refinement is needed to get that separation earlier by selling his drive phase better to get corners to think the route is going to be underneath or intermediate instead) and tear past man or find the soft spots quickly in zone coverages underneath for big Yards After the Catch opportunities. His hands developed over time in college with some early career struggles (11 drops for over 15% drop rate from 2022-2023, 19% contested catch rate in that span as well), but in the last 2 years Burks has seen a big improvement in his ball skills (4 drops for 4.2% and over 56% contested catch rate since 2024). He might not have the biggest catch radius as a 5’10 wideout with below 30” arms, but he has gradually learned how to maximize it with his explosive leaping ability, improved focus, and smooth hands with stronger grip strength. There is a tangible growth in his upper body strength over the last few years, and he was able to put up 26 reps of 225 lbs. on the bench. This definitely showed his toughness and physicality at the catch point to fight through contact over the last 2 years. Despite his size, this former Boilermaker and Sooner was an outside WR on most of his snaps, preferring to be a Z. He can still operate in the slot effectively and has some ability as a gadgety jet sweeper as well in that alignment, but his best seasons of 2023 and 2025 he was 91.8% and 77.9% of his snaps were out wide. Burks has a strong release package that helps him get early separation in his routes and avoid the press, helping him succeed against bigger corners outside. So why did Burks fall all the way to the end of Round 7? Burks didn’t have the best production in College, failing to get over 630 yards in any season. He doesn’t always play to his timed speed on tape either as he a bit more nuance to win his routes vertically and coming back to the QB on hitches, curls, and comebacks. His rough ball skills in his Purdue days could hurt his stock a bit as well, but the improvement at Oklahoma should have assuaged those concerns. He also isn’t the best blocking wideout on the outside either and teams could question if he should slide to slot at the next level with his size. All of these are certainly weaknesses in his profile, but moreso kept him out of the top 2 rounds on most big boards rather than outside the top 250 picks altogether. The biggest reason might be health. Burks suffered a severe thigh contusion and concussion that ended his 2024 season early, and had a scary 2022 head/neck injury at the Citrus Bowl that ended his time at Purdue and required hospitalization (although he was discharged quickly thereafter). Perhaps his medical checks at the Combine flagged something, potentially creating a long term concern with Burks health wise. This is only speculation for his sudden fall and unconfirmed, but it would explain things. As of right now Burks is healthy after playing all 13 games in 2025 and was able to test at the Combine and fully participate at his Pro Day, so unless there is information not available to the public he should be fully good to go for his rookie season. With a bit of coaching he could become even faster on the field and his abilities to separate on the outside and have strong Yards After the Catch production should make him a viable Z option for the Colts. Burks enters into a competition for starting snaps with longtime Colts veteran special teams star and backup wideout Ashton Dulin and newly signed former IU Wide Receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhene. Despite his Round 7 draft status, I would expect Burks to be a favorite to win the job, although the Colts run heavy offense and his blocking limitations could make him rotate snaps with his competitors. US standard Grading Scale Wise, the Day 3 draft’s average grades would be a B. So why is the end of draft grade so much higher? Deion Burks is why. The sheer amount of value of getting Burks at the very end of the draft when he was a perfectly viable player to be a plus value taken all the way at the start of Round 4 caused me to seriously reassess this class’s grade. Had Burks been taken at pick 113 close to where he was graded at (albeit ahead of a pair of other WRs still available) no one would have been too shocked value wise. Slotting him at that pick and moving every other player taken down a full Colts pick later would make this haul an A draft for Day 3. While that wasn’t what happened in real life, when looking at the totality of the Colts draft haul it was warranted to bump the grade up a bit. The Colts were able to get: The only things I can really harp on overall is the lack of outside pass rush help before Round 5, no nickel cornerback taken with Kenny Moore II on the trade block, and the lack of Defensive Tackle picks with DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart on the last years of their deals and both well over 30. These lower the grade a bit. But at minimum there are still plenty of veteran Defensive Ends available in Free Agency that were highly effective in 2025 that the Colts could pursue post-Draft. Should they sign one, the pass rush will be far less of a concern. The Colts did at least acquire a trio of veteran Defensive Tackles (Colby Wooden, Jerry Tillery, and Derrick Nnadi) to add to the depth alongside incumbent Adetomiwa Adebawore showing promising flashes, also reducing that need’s priority. Nickel corner is still an unknown, though the Colts could have hope for 2025 3rd round pick Justin Walley to slide inside despite his lack of experience there. Overall getting potentially three starters in six Day 3 picks is a tremendous haul, and could have a big impact on the Colts’ blocking power, receiving speed, and middle of the field coverage ability; all of which are things that the Colts lacked at these respective spots in 2025. Simply put: A Day 3 that helps solves a team’s problems is a damn good Day 3. This is the title for the native ad

There's a brief moment in "Game of Thrones" season 1, episode 4, "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things," that should make fans of dark 1980s fantasy movies sit upright. As the exiled Targaryen prince Viserys (Harry Lloyd) is sponged off by Doreah (Roxanne McKee), a handmaiden he bought for his sister Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), he discovers he can, ahem,exciteher by talking about the great dragons his family once rode. It's a prime example of the show's infamous use of "sexposition" (that is, sexual scenes that operate as an excuse to dump loads of exposition and plot-related information), but that's not the reason I'm bringing it up. Among the dragons Viserys mentions is Vermithrax, a fire-breathing giant who doesn't come from George R.R. Martin's source material (the "A Song of Ice and Fire" books). That's because this particular beastie gets its awe-inspiring name from "Dragonslayer,"the grisly '80s fantasy flick that Martin himself has cited as a personal favorite. In the home media commentary for "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things," "Game of Thrones" co-showrunner D.B. Weiss confirms that this detail was included in the episode as a way to shout-out the movie. So far as creepy '80s fantasy features go, "Dragonslayer" hews closer to that decade's more adult offerings (think 1982's "Conan the Barbarian") than you might expect, given that the film was partly distributed by Disney (more on that to come). To be sure, that's undoubtedly a crucial part of what the younger Martin found so appealing when he first laid eyes on it, along with the movie's kickass scaly villain, whose full name is Vermithrax Pejorative. But most of all, "Dragonslayer" is a fantasy adventure that bucks the genre's conventions of its era and clearly helped to shape Martin's own fantasy writing following its theatrical release in 1981. Disney typically releases its most innovative films when it's in trouble, as was the case in the decade leading up to the Disney Animation Renaissance in the late '80s. Hence, the studio took a gamble by joining forces with Paramount to produce co-writer/director Matthew Robbins' "Dragonslayer," a movie that doesn't yell "Disney Whimsy" so much as "Gritty Dungeons & Dragons." Narratively, "Dragonslayer" centers on Galen Bradwarden (Peter MacNicol), a plucky if unremarkable spell-caster's apprentice who's forced to battle the terrifying Vermithrax in medieval England. What follows is unusually brutal for a PG-rated picture with the Mouse House's name stamped on it, with characters being horrifically burnt alive as sacrifices to Vermithrax or hungrily devoured like sausages by the creature's offspring. That's on top of some proper nudity, which is merely another reminder that the film arrived shortly before the PG-13 rating was invented. Just as daring are the film's frequently radical ideas and themes, including its unflattering depiction of the monarchs, patriarchal attitudes, and classism that govern its historical fantasy setting. (The symbolism of Vermithrax preferring their sacrifices in the form of virgin girls, in particular, is hard to misinterpret.) It even shows early Christianity gradually replacing the Pagan beliefs of yore, with the movie's proto-Christians typically spreading falsehoods about their victories to shore up their power. Obviously, George R.R. Martin takes things way further than "Dragonslayer" does with the violence, sexual material, political intrigue, and references to real-life history in his own fantasy works, which are generally more complex and intricate. All the same, the movie's influence on his "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels is unmistakable, from their shared love of underdogs to the ways their stories aspire to reinvigorate the fantasy genre at large. Like so many live-action movies released during Disney's "dark" era in the late 1970s and early '80s ("The Black Hole," "The Watcher in the Woods," "Something Wicked This Way Comes," etc.), "Dragonslayer" is an imperfect but otherwise compelling attempt by the studio to do something different. Unfortunately, like so many of those same films, it was also a clear-cut box office bomb. In this case, audiences mostly chose to get their pulpy action/adventure fix from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which premiered theatrically just two weeks before "Dragonslayer" hit theaters. Nevertheless, the Oscar-nominated go-motion miniature effects and life-size models used to bring Vermithrax to life in the movie were legitimately groundbreaking, and they still look pretty great to this day (some rough compositing aside). It's not just George R.R. Martin who thinks the film's dragon rocks, either. Asmovie monster expert Guillermo del Toroonce opined toComing Soonback in 2008, "The design of the Vermithrax Pejorative is perhaps one of the most perfect creature designs ever made." The subversive elements and social overtones of "Dragonslayer" plainly made an impression on del Toro, too, given his own well-known practice ofcrafting original political fantasy features like "Pan's Labyrinth."What's more, the filmmaker has gone on to work alongside Matthew Robbins directly on several projects over the last 30 years or so, with Robbins serving as a co-writer on such del Toro joints as "Mimic," "Crimson Peak," and his stop-motion "Pinocchio" (plus the 2011 "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" remake that Robbins and del Toro wrote only). So, yeah, Viserys was right about one thing on "Game of Thrones": Vermithrax is kind of a big deal.

Delta – Una giornata di sole, immersa nella natura, ha caratterizzato la Festa di Primavera organizzata dall’associazione Gruppo Iniziativa per l’Ambiente di Porto Viro presso l’Oasi di Volta Grimana, preziosa area naturalistica che si estende per circa undici ettari di straordinaria bellezza paesaggistica, prevalentemente nel territorio comunale di Loreo. Per l’occasione della festa, l’oasi si è animata con un ricco programma di appuntamenti pensati per coinvolgere famiglie, bambini, appassionati di ambiente e semplici curiosi, offrendo una giornata all’aria aperta all’insegna della scoperta e della convivialità. Molto apprezzata la visita guidata del mattino condotta da Enrico Vicentini, che ha accompagnato circa quaranta visitatori lungo i percorsi dell’oasi, illustrando peculiarità naturalistiche, habitat e biodiversità del sito. Tra le attività proposte anche una lezione di yoga-ki accompagnata dal suono dal vivo, giochi per grandi e piccoli, una mostra fotografica curata da Francesco e Germano e diversi stand informativi e ricreativi presenti nell’area. Grande interesse anche per l’osservazione con il telescopio organizzata dagli Astrofili Polesani, che hanno permesso ai partecipanti di guardare il cielo in totale sicurezza. Tra i momenti istituzionali più significativi gli interventi del presidente del Parco, dei sindaci di Loreo e Porto Viro,i due comuni dove si estende l’Oasi, degli assessori presenti e dei rappresentanti delle associazioni ambientaliste WWF, Legambiente Delta del Po, LIPU Rovigo e il Tarassaco. Un segnale concreto di attenzione condivisa verso la tutela del territorio e del patrimonio naturalistico del Delta. Emozionante la liberazione di sei gheppi, gesto simbolico e altamente educativo che ha richiamato l’attenzione di adulti e bambini, sottolineando il valore della salvaguardia della fauna selvatica. Spazio anche alla scuola con le premiazioni degli alunni delle scuole primarie di Porto Viro, accompagnati dalle loro insegnanti, protagonisti di percorsi didattici legati all’ambiente e alla conoscenza della natura. A rendere ancora più speciale la giornata il clima mite e la bellezza del paesaggio, con numerose famiglie che hanno scelto di trascorrere il pranzo con picnic all’aria aperta immersi nella natura. La Festa di Primavera si conferma così un appuntamento capace di unire sensibilizzazione ambientale, educazione, svago e spirito di comunità, valorizzando uno dei luoghi più suggestivi del Delta del Po.

Le oasi del WWF compiono sessant'anni e aprono le porte ai visitatori più curiosi. Cà Brigida si trova a Verucchio, nel cuore della Valmarecchia, sulla sponda del rio Felisina. Una casa con grande parco non recintato che è lascito testamentario di Gustavo Voltolini, socio WWF scomparso negli anni 90. L’Oasi è diventata un porto sicuro per fauna e flora autoctone. Si può anche visitare la mostra sulle farfalle che si snoda su un percorso che dalla casa va al giardino delle erbe officinali. L'esposizione è accompagnata da una ricerca sugli impollinatori della zona. Ma Cà Brigida anche il luogo ideale, in primavera, per osservare piccoli animali acquatici: negli stagni si possono osservare tritoni, rane e anche insetti come le notonette. Nel servizio di Samuele Amadori, le interviste a Claudio Papini, presidente WWF Rimini, e Loris Bagli, referente scientifico WWF.

Saudi Arabia has chosen to rethink its relationship with its resources, asking a different question: How can we make what we have work to its fullest potential in a rapidly changing world? This was the essence of Vision 2030, which saw valuable opportunities in diversifying energy sources and maximizing the value of oil and gas to achieve greater prosperity, keeping pace with global environmental changes. The first clear sign of this shift was the renaming of the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources to the Ministry of Energy, a clear indication of expanding the horizon from oil and gas alone to a comprehensive energy system that includes renewables at its core. A Naturally Qualified Land This choice was not made without study. The Kingdom possesses geographical enablers that give it an exceptional competitive position: a climate conducive to successful solar energy projects, vast areas suitable for wind power projects, and geographical diversity that contributes to the development of hydrogen energy, all supported by accumulated investment capabilities and research expertise. On this fertile ground, a series of initiatives and projects were launched: The National Renewable Energy Program, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Renewable Energy Initiative, and the establishment of the National Renewable Energy Data Center, followed by solar and wind power projects aimed at enhancing electricity generation efficiency. The results speak clearly: The production capacity for electricity generation from renewable sources increased from 3 gigawatts in 2020 to 46 gigawatts in 2025. The total number of projects related to this sector reached 64, distributed among 40 solar power projects, 9 wind power projects, and 15 energy storage projects. Hydrogen: The Big Bet At the heart of NEOM, an unparalleled project is being born: the green hydrogen project, the largest and first of its kind globally, with a production capacity of 600 tons of green hydrogen per day. To support this direction, the first phase of the Yanbu Green Hydrogen Hub was launched, equipped with facilities for generating electricity from renewable sources, desalination plants, electrolysis units, facilities for converting hydrogen into green ammonia, and a dedicated export terminal. The Battery Race Figures in the energy storage sector are no less exciting; the Kingdom is approaching China in the global battery storage project cost race, with a cost of $409 per kilowatt for projects with a four-hour storage capacity, compared to $404 for China. The total capacity of proposed energy storage projects reached 30 gigawatt-hours, while 8 gigawatt-hours have been connected to the electricity grid. In a remarkable achievement, Aramco successfully operated the world's first renewable energy storage system to support gas well production operations, with a capacity of 1 megawatt-hour, capable of supporting 5 wells for 25 years. This system relies on a Saudi patent and represents a reliable alternative to traditional solar energy solutions, offering high efficiency in harsh climatic conditions and intelligent response to changing energy needs. SPARK... When Industry Becomes the Value Vision 2030 recognized that production alone is no longer sufficient, and that true value lies in building industries, localizing supply chains, and enhancing local content. This is where the idea for King Salman Energy Park "SPARK" was born, with investments exceeding 12 billion Saudi Riyals (3.2 billion dollars) and involving more than 60 local and international investors. SPARK is located in a strategic position close to energy sources, shipping, and export networks, and includes a dry port allowing faster access. So far, 7 factories have been opened, while another 14 are currently under construction. Balance, Not Compromise While the world moves towards transitioning to alternatives to oil and gas, the Kingdom adopts a different vision, believing that an accelerated transition could harm global security and growth, given that renewable energy alone cannot fully meet developmental needs. Therefore, the Kingdom continues to invest in exploring and developing oil fields, most notably the development of the unconventional Jafurah field, the largest of its kind in the Middle East, which will contribute to maximizing the value chains of gas and petrochemical industries. Thus, the Kingdom walks a fine line, balancing the preservation of global energy supplies with investment in technologies that eliminate carbon emissions, positioning itself today as a comprehensive energy hub and a model of prudent management.

Stasera 26 aprile su Report: spazio a un'inchiesta internazionale su potere, petrolio e diplomazia segreta. Poi il programma svela il lato oscuro dei porti italiani tra emissioni tossiche e impatti sanitari. Torna in prima serata Report, il programma d'inchiesta condotto da Sigfrido Ranucci, con una nuova puntata in onda domenica 26 aprile alle 20.30 su Rai 3. Al centro della serata, un viaggio tra ambiente, geopolitica e sicurezza, con inchieste che toccano temi di grande attualità e impatto diretto sulla vita dei cittadini. L'aria dei porti: l'inchiesta choc sull'inquinamento delle navi La puntata si apre con L'aria dei porti, l'inchiesta di Bernardo Iovene realizzata con Lidia Galeazzo. Le navi ferme nei porti continuano a tenere i motori accesi per garantire energia a bordo, ma questo comporta emissioni pericolose: particolato fine, ossidi di azoto e anidride solforosa che si riversano direttamente sulle città. Secondo studi epidemiologici, in città portuali come Ancona e Civitavecchia si registrano tassi di mortalità più alti proprio in relazione a queste emissioni. Nonostante le norme europee impongano dal 2025 carburanti con basso contenuto di zolfo, oltre il 90% delle navi continua a utilizzare combustibili più inquinanti grazie agli scrubber, sistemi che lavano i fumi scaricando in mare sostanze tossiche, con conseguenze anche sulla catena alimentare. Elettrificazione dei porti: soluzione reale o illusione? Tra le possibili soluzioni c'è l'elettrificazione delle banchine, finanziata dal PNRR, che permetterebbe alle navi di spegnere i motori collegandosi alla rete elettrica. Tuttavia, l'inchiesta evidenzia criticità importanti: infrastrutture ancora limitate, costi elevati e un fabbisogno energetico molto alto che rende questa transizione più complessa del previsto. Il cartello di Trump: il caso internazionale tra politica e petrolio Spazio poi a Il cartello di Trump di Daniele Autieri. Al centro, la vicenda di Alberto Trentini, un italiano coinvolto in un intricato scenario geopolitico che tocca figure come Donald Trump, Nicolas Maduro e l'Iran. Un vero e proprio risiko internazionale fatto di trattative segrete, interessi energetici e rapporti diplomatici che coinvolgono anche il governo italiano. L'uomo del Presidente: chi è Paolo Zampolli Un'altra inchiesta, firmata da Sacha Biazzo, racconta l'ascesa di Paolo Zampolli, oggi consigliere e inviato speciale legato a Donald Trump. Il servizio analizza documenti esclusivi, tra cui un audio che riguarderebbe un accordo con Melania Trump, oltre alla sua presenza negli Epstein Files e alle attività diplomatiche e imprenditoriali internazionali. E infine il ruolo della sua organizzazione WATO in una delle maggiori frodi nella storia delle Nazioni Unite, e le accuse di abusi di un'altra donna. Senza protezione: l'inchiesta sui guard-rail pericolosi Infine, per Lab Report, l'inchiesta Senza protezione accende i riflettori su un problema spesso sottovalutato: i guard-rail italiani. Molte barriere, obsolete e mal progettate, possono trasformarsi in veri pericoli mortali. Dai terminali a manina vere lame che affettano le auto e chi ci sta dentro ai paletti metallici, in caso di incidente aumentano il rischio di lesioni gravissime, soprattutto per motociclisti.

ByJOWENA RILEY, TRAVEL WRITER Published:10:19 BST, 26 April 2026|Updated:10:30 BST, 26 April 2026 Within the next 80 years, some of the world's most iconic holiday destinations could be swallowed by rising seas - vanishing from the map altogether. By 2100,climate changeis expected to drive an average global sea level rise of between 17 and 33 inches (32 to 84cm), according to the Intergovernmental Panel. While major cities likeNew Orleansand Tokyo are projected to face serious flooding, low-lying island nations such as the Maldives,Fijiand the Seychelles are at risk of disappearing entirely. Meanwhile, places including Venice, New York, Amsterdam andHong Kongcould see up to six feet of sea level rise in the coming decades, reshaping tourism and displacing tens of thousands of residents. But if you're hoping to tick these destinations off your bucket list before they're gone, you may want to reconsider - as your visit could unintentionally accelerate their decline. Experts warn against the 'see it before it's gone' mindset, explaining how increased flights and higher footfall can become a risk to locals, tourists and the environment. Izzy Nicholls, founder of The Gap Decaders, says: 'The most obvious issue is emissions. Extra long-haul flights taken specifically for last-chance trips add to warming and sea-level rise, and tourism as a whole has a sizeable carbon footprint. 'Many fragile islands also have limited water supply, transport space and emergency response capacity. When visitor numbers surge, the impacts show up fast, from water shortages and sewage stress to damaged paths and crowded streets that reduce quality of life for residents.' Andre Robles, owner of Voyagers Travel Amazon, added: 'Dragging people to see a destination on the premise that it might not exist in the same way in the future can drive the conversation away from environmental stewardship to an obsession with consumption. 'This ends up meaning more crowding and more strain on infrastructure and more pressure placed on a community already subjected to environmental changes.' As specialists and environmentalists urge travellers to remain ravel conscious and self-aware, we take a look at the nations most at risk of disappearing by 2100. The Maldives has an average elevation of just 1.5 metres, meaning around 80 percent of its 1,100 islands could be at risk of being swallowed by rising seas in the next 30 years The Maldives, a chain of islands south of India, covers only about 298 square kilometers. After periods of Portuguese, Dutch, and British rule, it became independent in 1965 - and has since become one of the most exclusive holiday and honeymoon destinations in the world. What makes the country especially vulnerable to rising sea levels is its height - or lack of it. With an average elevation of just 1.5 metres and a highest point of 2.3 metres, it is the lowest-lying nation in the world. Over 500,000 people live here, many concentrated in the capital, Malé, where more than 200,000 residents occupy a small, low-lying area. And if sea levels continue to rise as expected, around 80 per cent of the Maldives' 1,100 islands could be uninhabitable by 2050. Kiribati sits at just three metres high, making it most at risk of disappearing in the next 100 years The Republic of Kiribati stretches across three million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean, northeast of Australia, and is known as one of the first places on Earth to enter a new day and year. Despite its size on the map, its land sits dangerously low at just three metres high. Sea levels here are rising at roughly 1.2 centimetres per year - four times faster than the global average, according toActive Sustainability. This combination of low elevation and rapid sea level rise puts Kiribati among the countries most at risk of disappearing in the coming decades. The Bahamas faces a growing threat from rising seas, particularly on New Providence, its most populated island. The island, home to the capital Nassau, reaches only about five metres at its highest point. A map generated by the University of California suggests that large parts of it could be submerged within 75 years, with new inland lagoons forming as water pushes further inland. The situation is made worse by the islands' limestone geology, which allows seawater to seep up through the ground - meaning flooding can occur from below as well as from the coast, according toBBC Wildlife Magazine. Extreme climate events, paired with rising sea levels, continue to pose a serious risk to the residents of Fiji Fiji, a tropical paradise known for its white-sand beaches and volcanic landscapes, covers around 1.3 million square kilometres in the South Pacific. While rising sea levels remain a concern, extreme weather events are an equally serious threat. Heavy rainfall in 2009 led to severe flooding, killing 19 people, displacing thousands, and causing major damage to infrastructure. Key industries like tourism and sugar production were also badly affected, highlighting how climate events can impact the economy as well as residents' lives. Samoa, with a land area of under 3,000 square kilometres, became independent from New Zealand in 1962, and has managed to stay largely unspoiled by excessive tourism. However, one of its main environmental challenges is the loss of coral reefs due to rising ocean temperatures, according toActive Sustainability. These reefs act as natural protection against powerful waves - should they disappear, coastlines will be left exposed, leading to increased erosion and flooding. The Seychelles is a key holiday destination for those seeking sun, sea and a touch of luxury - but it may no longer exist in the next 100 years if sea levels continue to rise The Seychelles, another luxury holiday spot, is made up of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean - many of which are low-lying and vulnerable. Rising sea levels threaten not just the land itself but also the way people live. Most of the 130,000-strong population and key infrastructure are located along the coast. This means even the smallest increases in sea level or stronger storm surges can have serious consequences, with the possibility that much of the country could be underwater within the next 50 to 100 years. The independent island nation of Tuvalu is one of the clearest examples of how unpredictable the impacts of climate change can be. Sea levels there have risen by about 21 centimeters over the past 30 years - nearly twice the global average. TheUNestimates that up to 95 per cent of the country - which has a low average height above sea level - could be submerged by 2100. Despite contributing very little to global emissions, Tuvalu faces an uncertain future, with limited resources to respond to the threat. The Marshall Islands covers just 181 square kilometres - though much of its land is being lost year by year. Here, the effects of rising sea levels are already visible in areas such as the capital, Majuro, where land that was once above water has been lost to the sea. Rather than a distant possibility, the gradual disappearance of land is already happening in real time. Entire islands have all but disappeared across the Solomon Islands due to rising seas The Solomon Islands, which stretches nearly 30,000 square kilometres, is a little pocket of paradise in Oceania that is home to over 800,000 people. However, over recent years, scientists have raised concerns about their long-term survival. Rising sea levels have already caused noticeable erosion - and, in some cases, entire small islands have disappeared, with sinking countries now a serious threat. The Republic of Vanuatu is widely considered one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Alongside rising sea levels, the country - situated in Melanesia - regularly experiences powerful cyclones. One such storm, which saw Cyclone Pam batter the island in March 2015, caused widespread destruction, damaging the 90 per cent of the buildings in the capital. With both sea-level rise and extreme weather intensifying, the risks facing Vanuatu continue to grow. Venice has experienced several flooding incidents in the last 20 years - forcing tourists to equip themselves with wellies, umbrellas and protective clothing Venice, like Amsterdam, draws millions of tourists every year who flock to explore its extensive canal system. But the famed 'Floating City' isn't just buckling under the weight of overtourism - it's slowly sinking in the very waters that surround it. The tourist hotspot has experienced 18 severe flooding events in the last two decades due to rising sea levels, with researchers at theNational Institute of Geophysics and Volcanologyrevealing the city is sinking by about 1 to 2 millimetres per year. Protecting Venice may require large-scale and costly solutions - like using large flood barriers to isolate parts of the land from the lagoon, or, as recently suggested,dismantling infrastructure and relocating them further inland. But, in the worst-case scenario, some parts of the city could simply become uninhabitable - the flooded remains only able to be viewed by submarine. To relieve some of the pressure Venice faces, Laura Evans-Fisk, head of digital & engagement at eurochange, suggests a trip to an alternative Italian spot that offers a similar experience. She said: 'Whilst Venice is a fantastic place to experience Italy's true culture and history, there are plenty of other, much less visited destinations in the country that offer similar qualities. 'Matera, in the Basilicata region, is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. You might recognise it from the James Bond film, No Time To Die, which was filmed on its beautiful streets. 'Trieste is another Italian port city worth visiting, which holds many similarities to Venice and is just 1.5 hours away by train. 'Close to the Slovenian and Croatian borders, its culture is a unique blend of Italian and Slovenian influences. 'The beautiful Canal Grande runs right through the city, dotted with restaurants and bars on the water's edge, making it a great alternative to Venice.' Across Palau, shorelines are disappearing, with much of the nation being vulnerable to rising sea levels and erosion Palau, a nation in the western Pacific, consists of more than 300 islands and is known for its rich natural environment and cultural heritage. However, much of its population and infrastructure is concentrated along the coast, making much of the nation highly vulnerable to rising sea levels, storm surges, and erosion. Signs of damage are already visible, with shorelines steadily receding and vegetation struggling to hold its ground. Nearby roads are also become increasingly vulnerable to flooding and wave action, according toNAP Global Network. The Torres Strait Islands lie between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea and are home to several small communities. Sea levels in this region have been steadily rising over recent decades, with flooding having already damaged homes, crops, and coastal defenses. In addition, saltwater intrusion is affecting local wildlife, reducing access to traditional food sources, with one man testifying that a notable rise in seawater had killed crabs, fish and other seafood locals would feed on. In a 2025 landmark case, the Australian Federal Court heard evidence that sea levels in the Torres Strait rose by 6cm per decade between 1993 and 2019, threatening the traditional way of life of local residents. Up to 20 million people could end up displaced in Bangladesh if sea levels rise by up to 1.5 metres within the next century By the end of the century, Bangladesh could lose up 17 per cent of its territory due to rising tides - potentially resulting in the displacement of around 20 million people. Sea levels along the coast may rise by up to 1.5 metres by 2100 - with extreme weather potentially driving that increase even higher. Those living in rural areas are already having to grapple with the option of changing their way of life or finding a place elsewhere to settle due to unpredictable conditions. At the same time, saltwater intrusion and more frequent storms are making farming harder and driving migration. Joyce Chen, economist at The Ohio State University, told theBBC: 'The climate is becoming more volatile so we are seeing a higher frequency of migration. 'Where in the past we see migration due to annual flooding, or river bank erosion, now we see saltwater intrusion more commonly which affects the environment long term. 'It makes it harder to grow crops because the land is permanently altered by the saline water.' In the Netherlands, around 60 per cent of the population lives in areas at risk of flooding Even developed lands aren't safe. The Netherlands - famous for its winding canals and overlapping bridges - has long managed the challenge of living with water, with more than a quarter of its land below sea level. Around 60 per cent of its population lives in areas at risk of flooding, making the country highly vulnerable to sea level rise driven by climate change, as reported byNational Delta Programme. Future projections from the KNMI Climate Scenarios suggest sea levels could rise by over one metre by 2100 if the climate warms by even 2 degrees. As a result, the country must continue investing heavily in advanced flood defenses and water management systems. Miami, a popular beach hotspot in the state of Florida, faces an entirely different kind of flooding risk. Although it's surrounded by water, the city is built on porous limestone - allowing water to rise not just from the ocean, but from beneath the ground as well. Due to its low elevation of roughly 6 feet, the city faces a severe, long-term threat from rising sea levels, with ongoing urban flooding already causing damage to upland properties and infrastructure. In the coming decades, flooding is expected to become more frequent due to higher king tides, storm surges, and extreme weather - with hurricanes being a key concern. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy brought waves of up to 10 feet high to Miami's shores, causing extensive destruction. Although it's not set to be completely underwater within the next century, there is a risk the city can become partially submerged, as reported byRising Above Miami Beach. Nauru is a tiny island nation in Micronesia, covering just over 20 square kilometres. Its low average height makes it particularly exposed to rising sea levels, while 80 per cent of its land already devastated by decades of phosphate mining. If global warming continues at its current pace, ocean levels are expected to increase further here, putting the long-term survival of the island and its population in serious doubt.

* Unofficial support, seewikifor details https://www.realtek.com/Download/List?cate_id=585 https://wiki.wisdpi.com/network/usb-3.2-5gbps-wired-base-t-ethernet-adapter Q: What chip does it carry ? A: RealtekRTL8157 Q: Does WP-UT5 supportWindows 10? A: Yes. However, the Win10 driver provided by Realtek currently is very unstable. It isnot recommendedto use it, or you can wait for Realtek to update the driver. Q: Does WP-UT5 support Mac OS or iOS ? A: Yes. WP-UT5 support Mac OS and iOS. We have tested on Macbook Air M2, Macbook Mini M3, iPad Air, iPhone 15 and so on. Q: Does WP-UT5 supportSynology NAS? A: Yes. You can visit our wiki link for details. Q: Does WP-UT5 support general Network Switch ? A: The WP-UT5 is compatible withmost 10Gbps RJ45network ports, as well as 10Gbps SFP RJ45 modules. If you are unsure if the switch is functioning properly, it is recommended to use it with the WisdPi 10Gbps 5-speed SFP module. Q: What's the maximum speed connected to a USB 3.2 gen 2, 10GB A: About4.7Gbps Shipping was slow. Took nearly two weeks for delivery.Had issue getting my win 11 laptop to recognize the device. Great finally getting 5Gb to my laptops I like how small it is as it is easy to pack away with travel. It even seems to work well attached to my Samaung S24 Ultra as a 2.5gb adapter. As of right now no complaints! Always nice to have the correct dongle Thanks for subscribing! This email has been registered! Draft order has been created successfully. Add address

Ah, the golden era of television. We all know when it was, around the turn of the century, when HBOgave the worldThe SopranosandThe Wireand everything was generally just a bitbetter– Trump was a comparably harmless if highly irritating real estate mogul and the most impressive thing you could do with your phone was play Snake. Since then, there have of course been brilliant shows popping up over the years –Breaking Bad, Succession, Mad Men– but there have also been long stretches of “meh, nothing special” TV in between. That’s why it’s so exciting that we currently seem to be in a purple patch of great telly, from the pressure-cookermedical dramaThe Pittto the return ofbiting satire likeBeef. Here’s our pick of what you would be mad to miss out on, while TV is having a bit of a moment... Out now on Apple TV I could not get enough of this show. Even the opening credits (always such an artistic treat on Apple) gave me a kind of sugar rush each time I tuned in. Adapted from the 2024 novel by Rufi Thorpe, it’s quite hard to define, a show about OnlyFans and motherhood and power imbalances and money, all set in a candy-coloured world. An effervescent Elle Fanning is at the story’s glittering core, and surrounded by a note-perfect ensemble of Nick Offerman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman and Thaddea Graham – the village who help raise her child. Perfect, joyous TV that, like the sun on your skin, you’ll miss when it’s over.Ellie Harrison Out now on BBC iPlayer As soon as I finished watchingThe Other Bennet Sister, in which plain, put-upon Mary fromPride & Prejudicegets her moment as an Austen heroine at last, I wanted to start watching it again. If it had been released in the early Noughties, I’d have bought it on DVD with my Christmas money and watched it once a month for the rest of my teens. It was that kind of show; nostalgic, silly but also incredibly important, full of heart and big feelings, stacked with brilliant British actors having the time of their lives. The best bit? Mary Bennet looking like the cock of the walk in a rowing boat, her two warring suitors heaving her to the shore in Darcy-esque white wet shirts.Jessie Thompson Out now on Netflix Back for a second season,Beefremains one of the most brilliantly conceived shows on Netflix. Where series one followed the escalating fallout from a road-rage incident, season two relocates to a swanky Montecito country club. Here, two cash-strapped young staff members film their bosses having the mother of all domestic rows, and start wondering what that video might be worth. What follows is thrilling and unpredictable: a vicious, subversive class war, with Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac superb as the crumbling couple at its centre. Coolly eschewing sentimentality, Lee Sung Jin has built a world where everyone considers themselves the wronged party – and nobody gets what they deserve.Patrick Smith Out now on All 4 Channel 4 delivered the greatest piece of British campaigning television sinceMr Bates vs The Post Officein February withDirty Business– a deep dive into the murky raw sewage scandal. Starring Jason Watkins and David Thewlis as two real-life neighbours who noticed a lack of wildlife in their filthy local river, the three-parter follows them as they uncover how water companies allowed raw sewage to contaminate England’s rivers and seas over 10 years – jeopardising the health of millions. A darkly comic yet heartbreaking series, prepare to laugh and cry, but most of all, feel incredibly angry.Lauren Morris 7 May, Netflix In the early Nineties, a group of bored-out-of-their-skulls customs officers got a promotion that changed their lives forever. Heroin was flowing into Britain at an unprecedented rate, leaving thousands of dead youngsters in its wake, and a small group of men and women were asked to go undercover and take down the gangs bringing it into the UK. The story of these ordinary people on an extraordinary mission has been turned into a rip-roaring drama led by Tom Burke, Steve Coogan and Hayley Squires. I challenge you not to finish off all six episodes in one gulp.EH Out now on BBC iPlayer This tender drama arrived without fanfare on BBC One in early January, when everyone was distracted by Alan Carr giving the performance of a lifetime onThe Celebrity Traitors. For those who missed it, it’s well worth catching up on – Josh Finan is strange and captivating as Dan, a man who teaches philosophy in prisons, and who himself comes from a family of men who’ve spent time behind bars. It’s all the more moving for being based on a true story and adapted from Andy West’s memoirA Life Inside.This is delicate, thoughtful television that leaves a mark on your heart.EH Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled. ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission.This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled. ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission.This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. Out now on Prime The person who came up with the idea forLast One Laughingis a genius. A cruel genius. The concept is so simple: get a bunch of comedians in a room and force them to keep a straight face for six hours; if you laugh, you’re out. This year’s second UK series pulled in a bunch of hilarious British heavyweights, from Alan Carr to David Mitchell to returning champ Bob Mortimer. I actually don't know how they survived – they must have felt genuine physical pain watching Diane Morgan read poetry, completely deadpan, from a hardback book while making intermittent fart noises, banned even from so much as smiling. I laughed myself silly.JT Weekly on HBO Max Last year, I was telling everyone who’d listen aboutThe Pitt, a breathless medical drama tracking a 15-hour stint in the heart of a busy Pittsburgh emergency room. Each episode focuses on one hour in the lives of the doctors and nurses being pushed to their limits. That very show is now the biggest series on TV – and crucially, it deserves that moniker. The show has razor-sharp attention to detail and is filled with a cornucopia of well-rounded characters for you to root for (or not). Thank heavens lead star Noah Wyle’s original plans to make this show a pureERreboot fell through, because then we might have been robbed of this cultural phenomenon.Jacob Stolworthy Weekly on Sky and NOW Sketch shows are notoriously a hit-and-miss format – and while that’s certainly the case forSaturday Night Live’s new British counterpart, it’s still appointment viewing. Each 75-minute episode delivers an electric cocktail of live comedy hosted by a celebrity guest, showcasing its impressive cast of up-and-comers – like hilarious breakout star Jack Shep (whose Princess Diana impression took the internet by storm). Riz Ahmed’s stellar turn as guest host has been a highlight so far this series, and with sitcom upstarts Nicola Coughlan and Aimee Lou Wood on board, the second half is already showing comedic promise. With our attention spans at an all-time low, it’s easy to switch off after one unfunny sketch – but stick around for sharpTraitorsparodies and terrific takes on Keir Starmer before they undoubtedly go viral the next day.LM Out now on Netflix Comedy-crime dramas might be associated with the cold winter months, butBig Mistakes,Dan Levy’s new drama for Netflix, is one to stay in for even during these sunnier climes.Schitt’s Creekcreator Levy, who wrote the show with auteur and It-girl Rachel Sennott, stars as closeted pastor Nicky, while Taylor Ortega is his sister Morgan. I won’t say how, but the bickering duo find themselves accidentally embroiled in a world of dark criminality, burner phones thrust into their hands to be picked up, no matter what. Things might sound sinister, butBig Mistakesperfectly balances big laughs and pacy, dramatic plotting.Schitt's Creekfans, naturally, will love.Isobel Lewis Out now on Apple TV For All Mankindmight just be TV’s best-kept secret. It presents an alternate history in which the space race never ended – and, over the decades, has found its way to Mars. Series one begins in the 1960s, with each new season presenting a time jump of 10 years. Sci-fi fans will be left astounded by some space-set sequences that rival any film you’ll see in the cinema. I’ll be honest: season three and four lost some of the magic that the first two brought in droves, but season five is back on track; it’s better than ever, and a spin-off,Star City, will be released later this year, so now’s the time to jump aboard.JS Out now on BBC iPlayer The Capturehas concluded its chaotic third season, which might be the end of the show altogether. This makes it the perfect time to go back and watch the whole thing through – you won’t regret it:The Captureis a terrifyingly prescient exploration of deepfake tech, and how shadowy figures at the top can tweak what we see to fit the narrative they want to peddle. It has more twists thanLine of DutyandLuthercombined, and yet has ridden somewhat in the background compared to those two juggernauts. If there’s any justice,The Capturewill endure as a classic.JS

L’affondo del consigliere di minoranza Nieto sull’approdo di Porto Ercole "Il rinvio svuoterebbe di significato la procedura, con notevoli conseguenze". MONTE ARGENTARIODopo il consiglio comunale di venerdì resta acceso il confronto suPorto Ercoletra amministrazione e opposizione, specialmente sulla vicenda degliapprodie quella deicassonetti seminterrati, entrambe al centro di critiche da parte del gruppoSvolta Per l’Argentario. Sul porto il nodo riguarda la gara pubblica per la gestione degli approdi, una procedura conclusa e con lotti già aggiudicati, ma che secondo quanto dichiara il capogruppoMarco Nieto"non produrrà effetti immediati. L’operatività dei vincitori, infatti, sarà rinviata al 2027, subordinata agli esiti dei contenziosi davanti al Tar e al Consiglio di Stato". Nieto parla di "un corto circuito istituzionale. Si vince una gara pubblica, ma non si può lavorare – dice –, il rinvio svuoterebbe di significato la procedura, alterandone l’equilibrio economico e giuridico. La giustificazione ufficiale è debole. Si parla di sicurezza, di cantieri estivi, di esigenze operative. Ma negli atti non c’è traccia di un provvedimento formale e vincolante che imponga uno stop. Non un’ordinanza, non un parere cogente, solo valutazioni tecniche e riunioni. Troppo poco per giustificare il congelamento di un’intera procedura pubblica. Se gli aggiudicatari restano fermi, chi gestisce il porto nel 2026? A ciò si aggiunge la scelta di ridurre i canoni del 29% per il 2026, con possibili ricadute sulle entrate dell’ente. Il Comune che si è autoconcesso il demanio marittimo, da verificare la validità, non può muoversi come se avesse piena libertà nella determinazione dei canoni. Il canone a base d’asta è fissato dalla legge, non dall’ente. Alterarlo, soprattutto fuori da una gara, non è una scelta neutra: è un’operazione che rischia di entrare in rotta di collisione con il quadro normativo". Parallelamente, un secondo fronte di polemica riguarda l’installazione dei cassonetti seminterrati in via Caravaggio e via della Marina. In questo caso, l’opposizione ha voluto precisare che non è stata presentata alcuna denuncia alla Procura di Firenze – come dichiarato dal sindaco in consiglio comunale –, "ma solo una segnalazione al Nucleo tutela patrimonio culturale di Firenze, motivata da preoccupazioni legate all’impatto paesaggistico degli interventi. Le installazioni sono inappropriate con il contesto urbanistico e ambientale – prosegue Nieto –. Esistono alternative già adottate in altre zone del territorio comunale, come a Porto Santo Stefano, più rispettose del decoro urbano. Le criticità erano state segnalate nel 2024 agli uffici comunali, alla municipale e al gestore del servizio, senza però ottenere modifiche". © Riproduzione riservata Tag dell'articolo

Hace ya dos semanas tuvo lugar el aperitivo a cubierto del Jaleo! en el Multiusos Fontes do Sar de Santiago. Y este sábado terminaba el FIV de Vilalba, considerado el primer gran festival al aire libre del calendario gallego. Un suceder de fechas que, especialmente a partir de junio, no contará con ningún fin de semana libre para añadir un nombre más. Los habituales de este tipo de citas ya tendrán la agenda organizada para disfrutar de la música, la convivencia y el ambiente. Pero, sobre todo, ese carácter particular que cada encuentro ofrece y que hace que muchos repitan cada año como quien se hace socio de un equipo de fútbol. Estos son los más destacados dentro del ámbito del pop másmainstreamy la música urbanas. 18, 19 Y 20 DE JUNIO, SANTIAGO El evento musical de pago que mayor número de gente congrega en la comunidad necesita grandes apuestas para poder mantener su nivel de convocatoria. Este año viene con cuatro puntales que definen su eclecticismo: elnu-metalde Linkin Park, el pop global con montajes espectaculares de Katy Perry, el pop-rock nacional sobrado de carisma de Dani Martín y la electrónica de estadio de DJ Snake. Los cuatro funcionan como poderosos imanes capaces de arrastrar a más de 40.000 personas por jornada. A este despliegue se suma un cartel que distribuirá durante tres días a Lola Índigo, Biffy Clyro, Afrojack, Guitarricadelafuente y Sen Senra, junto a Hoobastank, Leire Martínez, The Molotovs, Barry B, Carlos Ares, Sexy Zebras, Niña Polaca y The Bloody Beetroots. También actuarán Dorian, Carlangas, Ortiga, Sarria, Michenlo, Habló Pablo, D. Valentino y Corella. 27 Y 28 DE JUNIO, VIGO Aunque hace una década este tipo de festivales fueran impensables, se han ganado un hueco en la programación gallega actual que va a más. En su segunda edición, el Galicia Fest tira de los artistas que rompen en las radiofórmulas y lasplaylistsde las plataformas, salpimentado todo ello con una pizca de nostalgia de los noventa. Bajo esta premisa, el cartel reúne a figuras consolidadas como Coti, junto a nombres de peso en el panorama nacional como Miriam Rodríguez, Álvaro de Luna, Taburete, Marlena y Juan Magán, referente del electro latino. Pero el eje central de esta edición es el fenómeno de La Reina del Flow, cuyo éxito global ha dejado asombrada a la industria musical. 26,27 Y 28 DE JUNIO, O PORRIÑO Debut para un encuentro que apela al pop tranquilo y reposado. Contará con los recitales de Bresh, Pablo López, Antonio Orozco y Sergio Dalma. Todos ellos actuarán en un escenario insólito: la canteras porriñesas de granito. De este modo se intenta ligar la música con la singularidad paisajística y el patrimonio geológico de la zona. 5 AL 12 DE JULIO, A CORUÑA Toda una semana de pop, electrónica y visibilidad LGTBIQ+ con conciertos gratuitos en diferentes puntos de la ciudad. El plato fuerte lo pone Zahara Rave, el formato tecnho-electrónico más bailable y espectacular de la artista. También, la presencia de Whigfield, una de las reinas del eurodance de los 90 que llega con su celebérrimaSaturday Night. El festival lo completan, por ahora, Miriam Rodríguez, Alba Reche, Julieta, Ricky Merino, Kika Lorace, Choriza May, Pitita, Arde, Jonydasvie, Montedapena, Raze y Terrae DJ’s. 9 y 10 JULIO, PORTAS He aquí el ejemplo perfecto de un festival que está por encima de su cartel, con público que compra el abono a ciegas, independientemente de quien actúe. El cartel musical cuenta con Rigoberta Bandini, The Rapants, Niña Polaca, Hombres G, M-Clan, Eliades Ochoa, Grande Amore, Dani Martín, Amaia, Xoel López, Sanguijuelas del Guadiana e Instituto Mexicano del Sonido, entre otros. Además de los conciertos, destaca el showrocking, un espacio gastronómico liderado por el chef Pepe Solla que ofrece pinchos de autor y singulariza al Portamérica. 11 DE JULIO, SANTIAGO Tras contar en años anteriores con figuras de relumbrón como Robbie Williams o Ed Sheeran, este año se baja un poco el nivel del cabeza de cartel, equilibrando la oferta final. Maroon 5, Martin Garrix, Danny Ocean, Rita Ora y Miriam Rodríguez conforman la oferta en el monte do Gozo en esta ocasión. Además de esta fecha central, el festival normalmente incluye otras citas en diferentes salas. Una resulta especialmente interesante: Garbage estará el 6 de julio en la sala Pelícano (A Coruña). 17 Y 18 DE JULIO, PONTEVEDRA María Becerra ejerce de reclamo principal en esta edición. Nombres muy conocidos como David Bisbal, Nathy Peluso (con su Club Grasa DJ Set), Ana Mena y Juan Magán la acompañan en un listado que también comprende a Luck Ra, Beret, Lucho RK, Nil Moliner, Despistaos, Hens, Natalia Lacunza, Chema Rivas, Yami Safdie, Mafalda Cardenal, Big Lois, Gemeliers, Besmaya, Rager, Luc Loren y LG1DO. 24, 25 y 26 DE JULIO, A CORUÑA Aunque empezó con una mezcla deindie, reguetón y pop nacional (se combinaba a Lola Índigo con Franz Ferdinand, Maluma y Black Eyed Peas), la balanza del Morriña se inclina cada vez más a lo urbano, donde ha encontrado su público. En la línea de lo que se pudo ver en el 2025, el puerto coruñés acogerá los conciertos de Myke Towers, Juanes, Manuel Turizo, Young Miko, Hard GZ y Belén Aguilera. La novedad de este año la pone una tercera jornada el domingo dedicada a la música electrónica con Brunch Electronik. JULIO-AGOSTO, SANXENXO Otro verano más, este ciclo salpicará la localidad turística referencia de Galicia con un variado menú de artistas como Nicky Jam, Xavibo, Loquillo, Taburete, Delaossa, Rusowsky, Íñigo Quintero y la sesiónMolan los 2000dedicada al reguetón. 28 AL 30 DE AGOSTO, BOIMORTO Mantiene la línea ecléctica, familiar y solidaria característica del evento. Y cuenta con la presencia de Pablo Alborán, Nena Daconte, Chambao, Repion, Boikot, La Bien Querida, Luar na Lubre, Cómplices, Ráfaga, La Paloma, Treixadura, Budiño, Santi Balmes, Fillas de Cassandra, The Rapants, El Kanka, Ona Mafalda y Besmaya. 4 Y 5 DE SEPTIEMBRE, A CORUÑA Conectado con el Galicia Fest y compartiendo filosofía, contará este año con Beret, Juan Magán, La M.O.D.A., Taburete, Hey Kid e Inazio. Todavía faltan por anunciar algunos nombres potentes del cartel final. Franz Ferdinand, en un concierto en Galicia el pasado año.Ángel Manso El bum de los festivales en los años noventa estuvo muy ligado alindie: figuras alternativas que, paradójicamente, atraían a miles de personas. Hoy es una de las grandes fortalezas de este ambiente y tiene tal éxito que el cuestionamiento de lo que esindiey no es uno de los debates clásicos del público. En Galicia hay muchos ejemplos de ello. 6 AL 9 DE MAYO, LUGO Aquí no hay épica coreable ni carteles que indiquen «temazo» como en tantos otros. En su lugar, existe un profundo amor por la parte subterránea de la música que guía a este festival lugués que llega así a su décima edición. La psicodelia de los británicos Temples es el faro de un encuentro en el que también actuarán artistas como Triángulo de Amor Bizarro, Axolotes Mexicanos, Shego, Australian Blonde y Pacífica. 22 AL 24 DE MAYO, OURENSE La primera parada gallega de unos Love of Lesbian que anuncian su retirada será en esta cita de Ourense. A ese punto fuerte se le une también un Iván Ferreiro, que gira en modo retrospectivo mirando a Piratas, Carlos Ares, Alcalá Norte, La M.O.D.A., Siloé y Niña Polaca. 2 AL 4 DE JULIO, O BARCO DE VALDEORRAS Festival de pequeño formato que combina la música independiente, el espíritu de romería y el ambiente familiar a las orillas del río Sil. Muy recomendable para quienes acudan con niños, porque montan un festival paralelo para ellos llamado Minisilfest con actividades específicas. En la zona adulta actuarán Morgan, La Paloma, Puño Dragón, Hinds, L.A. y Bum Motion Club. 17 AL 19 DE JULIO, VILAGARCÍA DE AROUSA Todo un referente musical de loindieen Galicia con un público fiel que lo ha respaldado año a año. Tras brillar en la edición pasada con Primal Scream, Slowdice y Jesus & Mary Chain, sigue la guía internacional con dos clásicos del ambiente festivalero: Franz Ferdinand y Two Door Cinema Club. Además, Carolina Durante actuarán en su salsa con un público que los adora. Carlos Ares, Nacho Vegas y Depresión Sonora también figuran en un listado de artistas que se ampliará en los próximos días. 24 AL 26 DE JULIO, RIBEIRA SACRA Naturaleza, gastronomía, cultura del vino, patrimonio y un gusto exquisito guían este evento para gozar sin prisas y descubrir de su mano alguno de los parajes más bonitos de Galicia. En la parte musical, ofrecen una auténtica delicatesen como es The Divine Comedy, además de Sidonie, Baiuca, Anni B Sweet y Vera Fauna. 14 Y 15 DE AGOSTO, FERROL Dos formaciones totalmente referenciales de la nueva música gallega, Baiuca y The Rapants, lideran este pequeño festival que busca la consolidación en el nutrido calendario gallego. Para ello, también han recurrido a Puño Dragón, Pavlenha, Raze, y Eris Mackenzie. 21 Y 22 DE AGOSTO, PONTEVEDRA Otra de las paradas de Love of Lesbian en esta gira de despedida tendrá lugar aquí. Siloé, La La Love You, Carlos Ares, Sidonie y Yoli Saa se unen a la cita de este festival pontevedrés surgido en los últimos años y que ya es una parada fija del verano. 4 AL 6 DE SEPTIEMBRE, BURELA Otra iniciativa de carácter marcadamente independiente, hecha con espíritu de fan y que se ha convertido en un evento de referencia en el tramo final del verano. Depedro, Arume, Éxtasis, Gara Durán, Juventude y La Milagrosa figuran en su programa. 18 Y 19 DE SEPTIEMBRE, LUGO Si el FIV de Vilalba supone el inicio del maratón festivalero para muchos, el Caudal Fest supone la última oportunidad de lucir la camiseta (o el chubasquero si procede, que no sería la primera vez que se disfruta bajo la lluvia) antes de volver a los espacios cerrados. La receta para el karaoke colectivo sin fin contiene este año a Lori Meyers, Siloé, Ultraligera, Xoel López, La La Love You, Pignoise, Sexy Zebras y Besmaya. Iron Maiden, en un concierto en el Resurrection Fest.Xaime Ramallal La energía guitarrera, la rabia eléctrica y el vigor roquero también tienen una amplia presencia en la programación gallega, con algunas de las citas de referencia a nivel nacional e, incluso, internacional, como el Resu. 22 Y 23 DE MAYO, LUGO El punk clásico, el Oi! y elstreet-punkmandan en este festival cuya columna vertebral descansa en la mordacidad de Ectum y el legado británico de The Toy Dolls, Sham 69 y Cockney Rejects, quienes garantizan himnos generacionales. A destacar también Perkele y Bull Brigade. 26 Y 27 DE JUNIO, BETANZOS En un lugar tan especial como el parque do Pasatempo se celebra este encuentro dedicado alstoner rock, eldoomy la psicodelia pesada. De los muros de sonido de Conan y Burst a la psicodelia ácida de Stoned Jesus y Causa Sui, pasando por elfuzzdirecto de Wet Cactus y el misticismo stoner-folk de Moura. 1 AL 4 DE JULIO, VIVEIRO El festival más importante del metal en Galicia presenta un trío ganador: elheavymetal de Iron Maiden —cuarta visita a Galicia, esta celebrando su gira retrospectivaRun For Your Lives—, elnu-metalde Limp Bizkit y el rock industrial de Marilyn Manson. También hay que destacar a Sabaton, Anthrax, Mastodon, Trivium y Testament. A Day To Remember, Cavalera Conspiracy (Chaos A.D.), Angelus Apatrida, Converge, The Rasmus, Bleed From Within y Caliban, entre muchos otros, completan su poderosa oferta. 24 Y 25 DE JULIO, RIBADEO Al frente de todo, el punk gaitero de los canadienses The Real McKenzies. También actuarán El Drogas, Benito Kamelas, Dakidarría, Hamlet y The Lizards. 6 AL 8 DE AGOSTO, MUROS Integrado en el casco histórico, destaca este año por Big Special y Kid Kapichi, que aportan sonidos post-punk y rock actual, junto a Viva Belgrado y Parquesvr. 14 Y 15 DE AGOSTO, RIANXO Festival gratuito con 9Louro, Familia Caamagno y Orquestra Bravú Xangai en el cartel. 10 AL 13 DE SEPTIEMBRE, VILAXOÁN Otro imprescindible que ofrece como reclamo a Evaristo Páramos repasando su trayectoria punk. Lo acompañan Rebeliom do Inframundo, Kumbia Queers, lSüne (ex-Huntza) e Ilan Amores, entre otros. Y, como siempre, la tradicional sardiñada popular, la gala de circo y los conciertos a bordo por la ría, que son una seña de identidad del Revenidas. 18 AL 20 DE SEPTIEMBRE, FENE El paseo marítimo de San Valentín será el escenario para el final del verano roquero con un cartel en el que destacan El Drogas y Hamlet. También estarán en Fene Catalina Grande Piñón Pequeño y Aphonic. Grande Amore, en un concierto.Paco Rodríguez Junto al veterano Festival de Ortigueira hay otras iniciativas totalmente inclasificables que destacan por la variedad. 21, 22 Y 23 DE MAYO, REDONDELA Ambiente comunitario, rap, folk y ritmos del mundo frente a la ría. Actuarán Rebeliom do Inframundo, Alpargata, Fülü, Catalina Grande Piñón Pequeño y Lula Mora, entre otros. 12 Y 13 DE JUNIO, PONTEVEDRA Uno de esos festivales que tiene fecha reservada para muchos enamorados de su espíritu único, familiar y solidario. Han confirmado su presencia Grande Amore, Freedonia, Niños Bravos, 9Louro, Mad Foxes (FR), Estrogenuinas y Cora Yako, DEL 22 DE JUNIO AL 5 DE JULIO, A CORUÑA Xoel López en su casa tocando en San Xoán es el pase estrella de un ciclo abierto al jazz, el flamenco, las músicas urbanas y elindie. Tocarán Curtis Harding, María José Llergo, Barry B, Nadadora, Lela Soto, La Tania, ELLiS·D. 9 AL 12 DE JULIO, ORTIGUEIRA Lo que O Son do Camiño es al pop y el Resurrection al metal, lo es el Festival de Ortigueira el folk. Quienes acudan podrán disfrutar de las actuaciones de Ysves Lambert, Lúnasa, Solas, Anxo Lorenzo, Valtos, Rubén Alba, Noon, Xara, Bagad de Vannes, Banda Gaites Saxum y Grupu Etnográficu L’Oriente. 24, 25 Y 26 JULIO, ILLA DE SAN SIMÓN Y VIGO Con su fórmula de siempre, sin anunciar artistas y desvelándolos el mismo día, cuando empiece todo en la isla, el Sinsal este año se ampliará también al Camino Portugués los días 31 de julio y 1 y 2 de agosto.

El 26 de abril de 1986, hace exactamente 40 años, tuvo lugarel mayor accidente nuclear de la historia. Elreactor número 4 de la central nuclearVladimir Illich Lenin de Chernóbil, al norte de Ucrania, explotó durante una prueba nocturna de seguridad. La fuga de radiación obligó a evacuar a casi 150.000 personas, vaciando ciudades y pueblos, y creando una zona de exclusión permanente con un diámetro aproximado de 30 kilómetros. Los habitantes de la zona fueron trasladados a Kiev y otras poblaciones, peropoco a poco la vida humana empezó a regresara la zona.Primero lo hicieron los saqueadores, que robaron todo lo que podía tener algún tipo de valor desde las semanas posteriores a la catástrofe. El gran saqueo llegó tras 1991, con el colapso de la Unión Soviética, cuando se terminaron de vaciar los edificios de metales (tuberías, cableado, radiadores…) con valor de mercado. Tras los saqueadores llegaron lossamosely, los habitantes de la zona que volvieron a sus hogares y abandonaron los lugares donde habían sido reubicados. Todos de avanzada edad. Su situación no es legal, aunque es tolerada por el Gobierno. Subsisten cultivando vegetales y criando animales, a pesar de las advertencias sobre la contaminación del suelo.Y, por último, los turistas. Miles de turistas cada año hasta la invasión rusa de Ucrania en 2022. ElGobierno ucraniano empezó a potenciar el área de exclusión como destino turísticoy dio concesiones especiales a una decena de empresas. Ellas eran las encargadas de organizar las excursiones, que iban desde la clásica visita de un día –por la que optaban el 90 por ciento de los visitantes, según datos de las propias agencias– hasta las que permitían pernoctar en los dos mismos hoteles en los que se aloja el personal que trabaja en la zona. La visita al área de exclusión que aquí se narra recoge una experiencia vivida a principios de septiembre de 2021, cinco meses antes de que Rusia invadiera el país, en una Ucrania plagada de carteles de reclutamiento militar y de áreas de homenajes a los caídos porque la guerra en el Donbás llevaba ya siete años y no tenía visos de concluir. Un país que exigía pruebas PCR por el coronavirus tanto para entrar como para salir del mismo. La excursión a Chernóbil comenzaba en uno de los laterales de la icónica plaza de Maidán. Allí, minibuses recogían a los turistas con destino al área de exclusión. La única dificultad era encontrar el vehículo de tu excursión entre todos los que había y seleccionar el tipo de comida que ibas a tomar en Chernóbil. Era el momento también en el que se recordaban algunas de lasnormas clave de la excursión, de las que ya se había informado previamente. A la zona de exclusiónse debe ir vestido de cuerpo entero. Solo las manos y la cara pueden estar sin cubrir. No se debe acceder con manga corta, ni con pantalón corto o falda, ni con calzado abierto. No se debe coger nada, ni tocar nada, ni edificios, ni el césped, ni sentarse en el suelo, ni siquiera apoyar la mochila en el suelo. Se debe tenerel menor contacto posible con un entorno contaminadopor la radiación. El trayecto entre el centro de Kiev y elpuesto de control de Dytyatky, que marca el inicio del área de exclusión de 30 kilómetros, se realizaba en algo más de dos horas, pese a que sólo hay poco más de 100 kilómetros de distancia. Era por una autovía tremendamente bacheada que trasladaba al turista a una especie de montaña rusa por los continuos botes que iba dando en el asiento. En el check point se empezaban a tener las primeras sensaciones contradictorias. Los militares controlaban la documentación personal (pasaporte), verificaban que la documentación de acceso a Chernóbil estaba correcta y se entregaba a cada turista un pequeño medidor de radiación que debía ir colgado al cuello. Pero mientras se esperaba ese trámite se podía comprar en lostenderetes de alrededor todo tipo de suveniresrelacionados con el accidente nuclear –desde unmono con cámara antigáspara ir disfrazado a la excursión a llaveros, pegatinas, camisetas o cualquier cosa que pueda ser comprada por un turista–. Es en ese punto en el que se tenía un primer contacto con lasbabushkas, las ancianas que han retornado al área de exclusión y que son el máximo exponente de lossamosely. Mientras se espera a cruzar el check point es fácil verlas llegar en Bolt al control militar con las bolsas del supermercado para, desde ese punto, andar 10, 15 o 20 kilómetros hasta sus casas por los arcenes de las carreteras del área de exclusión. Finalizado el control de Dytyatky, los minibuses se internaban en la zona de uno en uno, generando una extraña sensación de inquietud y soledad. Camino del pueblo de Chernóbil, que nunca llegó a tener más de 15.000 habitantes, se echaba por primera vez pie a tierra para fotografiarse con el viejo monolito soviético de hormigón blanco que anunciaba la llegada al municipio, una imagen que inunda internet desde hace años. Y de ahí, a uno de los puntos clave, la visita al Monumento del Tercer Ángel, o simplemente, el "Ángel de Chernóbil", una escultura hecha con barras de hierro entrelazadas que representa a un ángel tocando una trompeta. Se supone que, exactamente, altercer ángel del Apocalipsis, ya que en la zona se compara el accidente con lo narrado en este libro de la Biblia, destacando además que ajenjo en ucraniano se pronuncia de una forma muy similar a Chernóbil. "Y el tercer ángel tocó la trompeta, y cayó del cielo una gran estrella, ardiendo como una antorcha, y cayó sobre la tercera parte de los ríos y sobre las fuentes de las aguas. Y el nombre de la estrella es Ajenjo. Y la tercera parte de las aguas se convirtió en ajenjo, y muchos hombres murieron a causa de las aguas, porque se habían vuelto amargas". (Apocalipsis 8:10-11.) Junto a este monumento se encuentra la denominadaAvenida de los Pueblos, un homenaje a todos los pueblos y ciudades que fueron abandonados por el desastre nuclear y que ahora están muertos. Están representados por una hilera de decenas de carteles con sus nombres. Por un lado, el nombre del pueblo está sobre fondo blanco; en el reverso, aparece tachado con una línea roja transversal, representando que ha dejado de existir. Mismo formato que en las carreteras españolas, para entenderse. En el pueblo de Chernóbil había algo de tiempo para deambular entre las casas abandonadas, que han sido tomadas al asalto por la naturaleza. Allí es donde los guías explican que, una vez los humanos desaparecieron, no sólo laflora, sino también lafauna, tomaron el control. Loslobos, loslinces borealesy lososos pardosse han multiplicado. Elcaballo de Przewalski, en peligro de extinción antes del accidente, ha hecho del área de exclusión su bastión. Una vez se dejaba el pueblo, el autobús regresaba a las carreteras y tomaba rumbo a la central nuclear. Antes de llegar, tocaban varias paradas. La primera,uno de los cementerios de material. Vehículos civiles, blindados militares, pequeños drones terrestres, maquinaria pesada… todo abandonado. Los guías acercaban sus medidores Geiger a los vehículos para que el turista comprobara cómo emitían un pitido constante y frenético que representaba un alto índice de contaminación. Era también un punto propicio para explicar a los turistas ladistribución de la radiación en la zona de exclusión. El guía lo comparaba con coger una manguera de agua, poner el dedo cubriendo parte de la salida de agua y, apuntando hacia el cielo, "regar" un suelo de hormigón. Una vez terminado el proceso, el suelo no queda mojado de forma homogénea, sino que hay partes totalmente secas, otras con poca cantidad de agua y otras encharcadas. Lo mismo pasa con la radiación. Puede haber un punto sin contaminación y, sólo a unos centímetros, un punto muy peligroso para la vida humana. También explicaba quetodoslos materiales no absorben de igual manera la radiación. Por ejemplo, el musgo actúa como una esponja para el Cesio-137, de modo que las zonas donde hay mucho musgo siempre serán altamente radiactivas. También el metal atrapa con facilidad los isótopos radioactivos (como el Cesio-137 o el Estroncio-90), por lo que todo lo que contiene metal presenta altos índices de contaminación. La otra parada se produce, más o menos, a un kilómetro del reactor 4 (que se ve en la lejanía), muy cerca del estanque de enfriamiento de la central (un lago artificial destinado a enfriar los reactores), en las proximidades delpuerto de Chernóbil, en el río Prípiat. Desde allí se divisan los esqueletos oxidados de las barcazas, remolcadores y buques de carga que se utilizaron en las operaciones de limpieza. Transportaron mayoritariamente arena, boro y otros materiales que se arrojaron sobre el reactor en llamas. Y, desde allí, a otro de los puntos clave: elMonumento a los Liquidadores. Se trata de un monolito que recuerda a aquellos héroes que se dejaron la vida evitando que el desastre nuclear fuera aún mayor. Algunos sabían que estaban destinados a morir en cuestión de horas y aun así aceptaron el reto. Otros actuaron recibiendo órdenes y sin saber que estaban destinados a morir en cuestión de horas, días, semanas o meses fruto de la radiación. Este es el punto más cercano al que puede situarse un turista del reactor número 4 de Chernóbil durante la visita. Exactamente, según explicaban los guías, se estáa tan sólo 270 metros de poder tocar con la mano el nuevo sarcófagoque cubre el reactor accidentado. Un sarcófago que fue instalado en el año 2019 y que debería proteger al mundo durante los próximos 100 años del infierno radiactivo que hay en el interior del reactor 4. Dejando uno de los puntos clave, la visita se dirigía a uno de los comedores donde todos los días compartían espacio los turistas y los trabajadores del área de exclusión. Es allí donde se tenía un rato de descanso para reponer fuerzas, comer de forma rápida el menú que se había seleccionado nada más llegar al autobús en la plaza de Maidán y pasar por el aseo si era necesario. El autobús de la excursión se dirigía entonces a otro de los puntos fuertes del día: laciudad fantasma de Prípiat. Era una "atomgrad" (ciudad atómica), construida en la década de los setenta para unos 30.000 habitantes. Fue diseñada específicamente para albergar a los científicos, ingenieros y trabajadores de la planta nuclear y a sus familias. Una ciudad de élite con instalaciones y lujos que no existían en otras ciudades soviéticas. Sus ciudadanos fueron evacuados 36 horas después del desastre nuclear y se les dijo que iba a ser por tan sólo tres días, razón por la que no cogieron sus pertenencias. Nunca volverían, razón por la que la ciudad quedócongelada con fecha de 27 de abril de 1986.Saqueada hasta quedar como un esqueleto al borde del colapso, durante la visita es posible recorrer algunos de sus puntos más emblemáticos. Es el caso, por ejemplo, delparque de atracciones, uno de los iconos de la tragedia, con su atracción de coches de choque o su famosa noria gigante, que estaba programada para inaugurarse el 1 de mayo de 1986, Día del Trabajador, pero nunca llegó a funcionar de forma oficial. Ese mismo día iba a inaugurarse también elestadio Avanhard, que había terminado de construirse a principios de abril. Mitificada por documentales y reportajes, en septiembre de 2021 no se podía entrar en lapiscina de Chernóbil, que estuvo funcionando para uso del personal que trabajaba en la zona de exclusión hasta 1998, doce años después del accidente. En los últimos meses había habido un pequeño derrumbe en su interior, que alteró la distribución de la radiación, y era necesario hacer un nuevo mapa de radiación para poder acceder con seguridad. Recorrer las calles de Prípiat es caminar por lo que parece un escenario de una película post-apocalíptica, pero con la perturbadora certeza de que es totalmente real. Un lugar donde la civilización pierde cada día un poco más la guerra frente a la naturaleza y donde el silencio sólo se ve perturbado por el chirrido de algún metal oxidado, por el pitido frenético de un medidor Geiger o por la voz del guía que muestra al pequeño grupo fotos de cómo era antes de la evacuación el edificio que se está visitando en ese momento. Una vez se deja la ciudad, los turistas continuaban su aventura en dos sitios más. El primero, un nuevo depósito de vehículos y material radioactivo abandonado. El segundo,uno de esos lugares que oficialmente no existían en la vieja Unión Soviética. En los planos de la época aparecía como un campamento para niños, pero que no se podía visitar porque los estrictos controles militares impedían acceder a la zona. Se trataba del radarDuga-1, un gigantesco mamotreto de antenas de 150 metros de alto por 700 metros de largo con el que el Kremlín pretendíaescuchar el posible lanzamiento de misiles balísticos intercontinentales desde Estados Unidos. El radar trans-horizonte (OTH, por sus siglas en inglés) emitía ondas de radio tan potentes que rebotaban en la ionosfera para "mirar" más allá de la curvatura de la Tierra. Se construyó cerca de la central nuclear porque consumía una cantidad ingente de energía. La antena no estaba sola, sino al lado de una ciudad militar cerrada, denominada en clave como Chernóbil-2. Después de 12 horas en el área de exclusión de Chernóbil, tocaba un último trámite antes de que los minibuses devolviesen a los turistas a Kiev. Se trata decomprobar la radiación recibida y confirmar que se sale limpio. Primero, de la radiación que atraviesa el cuerpo, algo que se comprueba con los datos registrados por el medidor que el turista ha llevado colgado al cuello en la visita. Lo segundo y último es la búsqueda de partículas radioactivas que se hayan podido pegar a la ropa o a la suela de los zapatos. Se trata de evitar que el turista abandone la zona con material radioactivo que pueda dañar gravemente su salud. Para ello, había que introducirse en unas cabinas de metal, colocando los pies y las manos en unos sensores, para que la máquina realizase el análisis y encendiese una luz verde que permitía abandonar la zona sin preocupaciones. Los guías que acompañan a los turistas durante las doce horas de estancia en la zona de exclusión de Chernóbil explican en varias ocasiones quela radiación que el turista recibe durante toda la jornada es equivalente a la que se recibe por realizar un viaje en avión de dos horas. Una idea que vuelven a recordar al salir de esta zona de análisis de la radiación recibida.

Skip to comments. Posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind ARLINGTON— The Navy took a major step forward in delivering game-changing hypersonic strike power to carrier pilots when it awarded California startup Castelion a contract nearing $105 million to fully integrate the Blackbeard hypersonic weapon onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The deal puts U.S. forces on a fast track to field its first operational air-launched hypersonic strike weapon from carrier decks by 2027.Unlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.No other navy currently fields a comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability from carrier-based fighters.This award builds directly on a $49.9 million Navy contract Castelion received in February 2026. The combined investment accelerates Blackbeard from advanced prototype to early operational capability in the carrier air wing in roughly 18 months.Blackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson Unlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.No other navy currently fields a comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability from carrier-based fighters.This award builds directly on a $49.9 million Navy contract Castelion received in February 2026. The combined investment accelerates Blackbeard from advanced prototype to early operational capability in the carrier air wing in roughly 18 months.Blackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson No other navy currently fields a comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability from carrier-based fighters.This award builds directly on a $49.9 million Navy contract Castelion received in February 2026. The combined investment accelerates Blackbeard from advanced prototype to early operational capability in the carrier air wing in roughly 18 months.Blackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson This award builds directly on a $49.9 million Navy contract Castelion received in February 2026. The combined investment accelerates Blackbeard from advanced prototype to early operational capability in the carrier air wing in roughly 18 months.Blackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson Blackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson Castelion’s emergence is a prime example of the acquisition speed that Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding. Whenever given the opportunity, Hegseth hasrepeatedly statedthat the Pentagon must “increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk” to the warfighter. Castelion’s repeated contract wins show how fresh entrants can deliver results when the system rewards speed over paperwork. Even as former Biden-era Pentagon officialshave praised Hegsethfor accelerating capability reform efforts, internal resistance has persisted. Navy Secretary John Phelan’s abrupt ouster, for example, was driven largely by the Trump administration’s view thathe was not moving fast enough on aggressive upgradesand Navy modernization priorities. Instances of internal resistance haven't stopped the shift from yielding tangible results and winning praise from the very companies now delivering faster capability to the fleet.Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis welcomed the news saying the “U.S. Navy commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.” He said Castelion, started by several principal thinkers at SpaceX, was “grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before.TOPICS:Foreign Affairs;Government;News/Current Events;US: CaliforniaKEYWORDS:blackbeard;california;castelion;defense;fa18ef;hypersonic;hypersonicmissiles;hypersonics;investing;mach5;missiles;navy;petehegseth;rcmaxwell;superhornet1posted on04/25/2026 6:01:18 PM PDTbySeekAndFind[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments?The speed of development is increasing.2posted on04/25/2026 6:11:33 PM PDTbyPeterPrinciple(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHaving worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program.I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right.3posted on04/25/2026 6:17:34 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindHow many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week?4posted on04/25/2026 6:24:12 PM PDTbyFireone(1. Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:maddog55On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process...5posted on04/25/2026 7:03:17 PM PDTbySpktyr(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two...DC corruption has become systemic.6posted on04/25/2026 7:14:45 PM PDTbyDesertRhino(When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindMy first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago...7posted on04/25/2026 8:11:11 PM PDTbySuperLuminal(Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindI had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-58posted on04/26/2026 1:52:20 AM PDTbyPocketdoor[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleI think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though.9posted on04/26/2026 5:28:07 AM PDTbytrebb(So many fools - so little time...)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindUnlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries and warships that would be much harder for ground-launched systems to hit. Blackbeard travels at speeds exceeding Mach 5, enabling it to cover hundreds of miles in minutes, maneuver inside the atmosphere, and strike high-value or time-sensitive targets while defeating enemy air defenses that can stop conventional missiles.Standoff is the name of this game. These missiles can kill off enemy weaponry, while the F18s delivering them are out of range for enemy retaliation.10posted on04/26/2026 5:37:20 AM PDTbydennisw(Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard |||||||||||||||||||||||||| There is no limit to human stupidity.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...Boko Haram Faction Selects 68 Women From Over 400 Captives For Distribution Among Fighters -- Borno Group[04/26/2026]Mali army bases hit in large-scale attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants[04/26/2026]China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds; China rejects 'unfounded' claims[04/25/2026]LosersBennett, Lapid unite parties[04/26/2026]Democrats Seeking to Hold 'Shadow Hearings' to Plan for Impeaching Trump on Day 1 If They Take the House[04/26/2026]James Carville says the quiet part out loud[04/26/2026]Bus blast in Colombia kills 13 amid rising violence[04/26/2026]NGOs Cosplaying as Overlords and Power Brokers[04/26/2026]Tragedy as top North Dakota lawmaker is killed as small plane she was traveling in crashes just after takeoff[04/26/2026]Texas Supreme Court tosses suit over state probe into families with transgender children[04/26/2026]A bank robber's cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case[04/25/2026]Make America Healthy Again plans anti-glyphosate protest in front of Supreme Court[04/26/2026]Driving this herbicide off the market won't make people safer[04/26/2026]Sarah Mullally, first female Archbishop of Canterbury, to meet Pope Leo[04/25/2026]Giuffre family hold anniversary vigil ahead of King's US visit[04/25/2026]'Progressive Christianity' is neither[04/25/2026]Mexico says US agents killed in crash weren't permitted to operate there[04/25/2026]The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous[04/26/2026]Psychology says the loneliest part of getting old isn't the solitude -- it's the slow realization that most of the connections you maintained for decades were held together by proximity, routine, and obligation rather than genuine love[04/26/2026]Cut off by 3rd landslide in a decade, Old Fort, B.C., residents worry about community's future[04/25/2026]New mega-pipeline to open fuel floodgates for gas-starved California[04/25/2026]11posted on04/26/2026 9:47:39 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]Looks like it’s pre-IPO:https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock12posted on04/26/2026 9:49:12 AM PDTbySunkenCiv(TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|View Replies]To:maddog55; SunkenCivUnlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texasposition the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.Is this a private company or Wall Street traded?13posted on04/26/2026 11:23:42 AM PDTbyGOPJ(The SPLC was behind Hillary's freak out about The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. SPLC created the lie.)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 3|View Replies]To:PeterPrincipleIt was never about the speed of of manufacturing it's the government process that slows everything down. They've processed themselves into stupidity which is how government works. I got lucky a few times and bypassed he BS to get a weapon system on an aircraft under budget and way under the expected timeline and deployed. It's how you write contracts, who you put the requirements on and running parallel efforts vice sequential. Helped to have leadership that said do what you do we'll cover you.Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this...14posted on04/26/2026 1:33:13 PM PDTbymaddog55(The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 2|View Replies]To:maddog55LOL, reminds me of this....15posted on04/26/2026 1:34:15 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 14|View Replies]To:dfwgator16posted on04/26/2026 1:59:18 PM PDTbyDoodleBob(Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 15|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindBlackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated)Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army17posted on04/26/2026 3:35:59 PM PDTbyPIF(They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]To:DoodleBob“EEEEVIL!”18posted on04/26/2026 3:39:14 PM PDTbydfwgator("I am Charlie Kirk!")[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 16|View Replies]To:SeekAndFindNo other navy currently fieldsa comparable operational air-launched hypersonic capability fromcarrier-based fighters.There you go.19posted on04/27/2026 6:29:16 PM PDTbySvartalfiar(-)[Post Reply|Private Reply|To 1|View Replies]Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson As China and Russia rapidly field and employ operational hypersonic weapons, the United States has trailed in delivering comparable systems at scale. Blackbeard changes the game. For carrier strike groups operating in contested waters, it adds a powerful new option to hit deeply buried targets quickly. By betting on speed, affordability, and rapid production instead of traditional slow-moving programs, Castelion is helping the Pentagon close the hypersonic gap at a pace never seen before. Blackbeard stands out as the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from the ground up for industrial-rate production, commercial unit costs, and rapid iteration. Unlike traditional defense programs that take decades and billions of dollars while delivering limited quantities, Castelion’s approach draws inspiration from SpaceX. Manufacturing facilities in New Mexico and Texas position the company to deliver these weapons at the volumes the Navy needs to restore deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and abroad.comments? The speed of development is increasing. Having worked Navy aircraft weapon systems for 30+ years, $105m won’t get you through developmental testing let alone flight test and evaluation then OT&E and probably 5 years minimum on an accelerated program. I’ll start with 500 million and 6 years if everything goes right. How many shares did Paul Pelosi buy last week? On the other hand, if it *does* work, it does tell us something about what we need to do with our acquisition process... I want to hear who owns that company, and if Trump administration or anyone in Congress bought in cheap in the last month or two... DC corruption has become systemic. My first reaction is to ask how many U.S. Congress critters bought stock in this company several weeks ago... I had to look up hypersonic... It mach 5+. I guess super sonic is mach 1-5 I think the name “Blackbeard” is apropos - the Blackbird was clocked at Mach 3.3....gonna ruin the Mazda “Zoom-Zoom” commercials though. Looks like it’s pre-IPO: https://search.brave.com/search?q=Castelion+stock Is this a private company or Wall Street traded? Defense Acquisition University.... Asinine rules, regulations and laws. Try to follow this... Blackbeard ‘Cheap’ Hypersonic Strike Missile Being Developed For U.S. Army (Updated) Blackbeard could give the Army a way to quickly strike dynamic targets hundreds of miles away, and also shake its acquisition processes.Joseph Trevithick Published Jun 30, 2025 https://www.twz.com/land/blackbeard-cheap-hypersonic-strike-missile-being-developed-for-u-s-army “EEEEVIL!” Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.Free RepublicBrowse·SearchNews/ActivismTopics·Post ArticleFreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson Disclaimer:Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Citation preview The Next Shift The Next Shift The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust ­B elt Amer­i­c a Gabriel Winant harvard university press Cambridge, Mas­sa­chu­setts London, E ­ ngland 2021 Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca First printing Jacket design: Monograph / Matt Avery 9780674259799 (EPUB) 9780674259836 (PDF) Publication of this book has been supported through the generous provisions of the Maurice and Lula Bradley Smith Memorial Fund The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Names: Winant, Gabriel, author. Title: The next shift : the fall of industry and the rise of health care in Rust Belt America / Gabriel Winant. Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2021. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020041877 | ISBN 9780674238091 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Medical economics—Northeastern States. | Medical economics— Middle West. | Community health aides—Northeastern States. | Community health aides—Middle West. | Industries—Northeastern States. | Industries— Middle West. | Northeastern States—Economic conditions. | Middle West— Economic conditions. Classification: LCC RA410.54.U6 W56 2021 | DDC 338.4/736210974—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041877 To my parents, Debbie Rogow and Howie Winant, who have always dreamed of a better world and indeed made one for their ­children. History is what hurts. —­Fredric Jameson, The Po­liti­cal Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act Contents Introduction: When Workers Dis­appear 1. Down in the Hole: Steelmaking Pittsburgh in the 1950s 1 25 2. Dirty Laundry: ­Labor and Love in the Working-­Class Home 63 3. “You Are Only Poor If You Have No One to Turn To”: Race, Geography, and Cooperation 98 4. Doctor New Deal: Social Rights and the Making of the Health Care Market 135 5. Enduring Disaster: The Recycling of the Working Class 179 6. “The Task of Survival”: The Commodification of Care and the Transformation of L ­ abor 218 Epilogue 259 List of In-­Text Abbreviations 267 List of Bibliographical Abbreviations 269 Notes 273 Acknowl­edgments 337 Index 341 The Next Shift A lle gh e ny Rive r North Side McKees Rocks PITTSBURGH Plum Allegheny R i v er Lawrenceville Shadyside Penn Hills Wilkinsburg Green Tree South Side Homestead Braddock/ Rankin McKeesport Bethel Park r Jeannette Greensburg Clairton r borde Irwin ah ela ounty White Oak Ri ve eny C Murrysville Monroeville Duquesne Mt Lebanon Allegh C o u n t y b ord er Oh io ng no Mo West Newton The Pittsburgh area 0 6 miles 6 km Introduction When Workers Dis­appear I n 2013, Pennsylvania’s largest private employer claimed before federal regulators that it “has no employees.” This institution, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), added that it “conducts no operations” and “engages in no employee or industrial relations activities.” This argument surprised many ­because UPMC, a health care ­giant, dominates the regional economy. It looms over Pittsburgh from US Steel Tower, the tallest building in the skyline, on top of which the g­ iant letters “UPMC” have replaced “USS.” And the massive health care system ­today employs more than eighty-­five thousand ­people—­legal claims notwithstanding. Where did all the workers go?1 The hospital chain’s claim of having no employees, made in the context of disputes over its employment practices and tax status, rested upon a l­egal distinction between the parent com­pany and its subsidiary entities. B ­ ecause of its orga­nizational structure, UPMC argued, it was not obligated to act in ways expected of an employer. This contention put UPMC in the growing camp of employers in all industries seeking to avoid responsibility for employment’s costs through the use of subcontracting or misclassification of workers as in­de­pen­dent contractors—­a phenomenon known as the “fissuring” of the workplace. A 2018 magazine feature on the subject used UPMC’s practices for its central example, telling the story of the outsourcing of the job of medical transcriptionist Diana Borland to a contractor that paid her per line rather than per hour. “As a UPMC employee, she had earned $19 per hour, enough to support a solidly middle-­class life. Her first paycheck at the per-­line rate worked out to just $6.36 per hour.”2 While UPMC’s claim was tactical chiseling at one level, at another the assertion also symbolizes a profound paradox in the American po­liti­cal economy: 2 The Next Shift care workers are at once everywhere and nowhere. They are responsible for every­one, but no one is responsible for them.3 The practice of “fissuring” is only one formalized manifestation of this deeper phenomenon. In a large-­scale pattern often described as the “polarization” or “dualization” of the economy, profits accrue increasingly to firms that do not generate mass employment, while l­abor si­mul­ta­neously accumulates in low-­margin industries far from profits. The accumulation of capital is more and more decoupled from employment not just by formal corporate structures but also by the mix of commodities that h ­ uman l­abor is required to produce. What has changed is not just the corporate organ­ization of ­labor markets but also, beneath it, the social division of l­ abor.4 This change has meted out severe social consequences. High-­employment, low-­profit industries—­such as health care, education, and social services—­ experience constant downward pressure on their margins as a result of ­t hese industries’ ­limited opportunities for productivity gains, a prob­lem inherent to the provision of ­human ser­v ices. The pattern even plays out inside the bounds of a given industry like health care, as phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal companies, insurers, and medical technology firms capture the profits, while hospitals, home health agencies, and nursing homes—­the engines of employment—­ operate less profitably, further down the value chain. Unable to achieve steady advances in efficiency of production, such employers instead sustain themselves financially by increasing prices and suppressing wages. “I have not received a raise for approximately 10 to 12 years from my employer, and I pay the same price for bread as they do,” one Pittsburgh hospital worker testified in 2015.5 This category of labor-­intensive, low-­productivity, low-­wage industries has grown rapidly in its share of overall employment. Such a possibility is intrinsic in the transition from an industrial to a ser­v ice economy, although specific po­liti­cal institutions elaborate or inhibit this possibility, leading to international variation. Everywhere across the global North, as the power of the or­ga­nized working class collided with declining manufacturing profits, a sectoral transformation ensued—­and the care economy expanded, within the public sector or adjacent to it.6 The choice for cap­i­tal­ist democracies, social scientists observe, forms a “trilemma”: a three-­way choice between unemployment, low wage growth, or I n t ro d u c t i o n 3 high public deficits. Institutional particularities at the national or subnational level, shaping the extent and contours of in­equality, represent elaborations of this under­lying general predicament. “­There are huge areas of servicing which are l­abour intensive and low-­skilled. The lower end of servicing society is where we must pin our hopes for mass employment,” observes Gøsta Esping-­Andersen. “Unfortunately, ­because of their sluggish productivity, low-­end ser­v ice jobs are threatened by a long-­r un ‘cost-­d isease’ prob­lem. [Service-­sector] employment is therefore likely to stagnate ­unless wages slide downwards.” 7 Hold wages down to encourage job creation, accept high unemployment in return for good wages, or embrace costly direct state intervention in employment—­t hese are the contours of the trilemma. In the United States, through our hybrid public-­private welfare state, we have selected the option of mass low-­wage private-­sector employment. Exploitative working conditions for some, however, enable security for ­others, ­because the millions of jobs that have proliferated at the bottom of our dual economy originate, to an astonishing degree, in the rising care economy. This category encompasses the provision of direct and indirect ser­vices to develop and sustain ­human capacities, including tending to the young, old, disabled, and sick and supporting daily life through ­house­keeping, food ser­v ice, and domestic work. While all t­ hese categories of employment have expanded markedly, health care accounts for the largest part of the care economy phenomenon.8 In the bottom quintile of the American wage structure, the care economy accounted for 56 ­percent of all job growth in the 1980s, 63 ­percent in the 1990s, and 74 ­percent in the 2000s. The workers who “do not exist”—­whom UPMC disavowed—­a re found h ­ ere, in vast and growing numbers, in the lowest strata of the l­ abor market, their multiplication driving the overall increase of in­equality. Insofar as this sector of employment has long been demarcated as a degraded one assigned largely to w ­ omen, especially w ­ omen of color, this polarization dynamic also represents the stubborn reproduction of racial and gender hierarchy in and through ­labor market pro­cesses. Equally, the reconstruction of ­labor markets since industrial decline has depended on preexisting hierarchies of race and gender.9 The extraordinary growth in the volume of this work, however, also suggests that it is meeting some demand, fulfilling some major social function 4 The Next Shift or providing some impor­tant value. But this value is not reflected in the money paid to the workers for their role. Indeed, employers in the care economy diverge in several impor­tant ways from expected cap­i­tal­ist practices: the markets in which t­ hese employers compete are imperfect; they rely directly and intensely on public subsidy; and they do not generate sustained productivity gains.10 Focusing on care work adds a critical layer of complexity to the increasingly intense discussion in recent years over the transformation of l­ abor and its relationship to in­equality. In one view, stable formal employment has stalled out ­under severe structural burdens. Unemployment, indebtedness, and precarity, in this analy­sis, have become the fundamental ­human experience of capitalism over the past several decades—­whether ­because of a deepening crisis of growth and profitability resulting from global competitive pressures; the acceleration of automation; or both. Other observers see a more open-­ended dynamic, in which the prospects of ­labor rise and fall without any necessary historical tendency and are amenable to collective po­liti­cal intervention of familiar kinds.11 Neither account, however, has a clear place for the growing care economy. If we are living through a secular decline in formal or traditional employment, how are we to explain the ascent of this sector of the ­labor market, as other industries have collapsed all around it? Why, specifically, did demand for institutional care increase so rapidly, driving an extreme expansion in low-­wage care work? If, on the other hand, we see the pro­cess as contingent, then we do not attach major significance to the shifting sectoral pattern of employment; instead, the care economy appears as just the next growth area, one in a long sequence. This view pre­sents a prob­lem in that the new sector seems to be such an anomalous one in the history of capitalism, in which self-­sustaining productivity growth has historically been a defining feature. Placing the rise of the care economy in historical perspective helps to reconcile t­ hese positions. It was not a coincidence that care l­abor grew as industrial employment declined. The pro­cesses w ­ ere interwoven. The collapse of the industrial core of the economy created social prob­lems that became translated, through the mediation of the welfare state, into the form of health prob­lems. As their livelihoods disintegrated, working-­class I n t ro d u c t i o n 5 ­ eople brought pressure to bear, demanding social support. This pressure p occurred to some degree as direct po­liti­cal agitation, but more consequentially took the form of the economic power that or­ga­nized workers wielded when they acted as blocs of collective consumers, expanding the system of care provision. The resulting institutions generated employment on a massive scale. Care workers’ numbers t­ oday have grown to the extent that their census-­ designated sector of the ­labor market—­“ health care and social assistance”— is the country’s largest, claiming about one in seven jobs nationwide and even more in places like Pittsburgh. Across the old industrial zones of the northern and midwestern United States, this figure rises ­today ­toward an enormous one in five jobs. In numerous cities similar to Pittsburgh—­Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rochester, Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia—­hospitals account for the majority of the largest employers. Where one institution—­like Pittsburgh’s UPMC, Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University Hospital, or the Cleveland Clinic—­has managed to consolidate its market, that hospital may reach the position of the largest private employer in the entire state.12 No major urban area in the South or West rivals the Rust ­Belt cities in terms of health care’s share of employment (see T ­ able I.1). At the same time, workers in the health care industry face low wages and precarious working arrangements (as do workers across the care economy in industries not studied in this book). Only months before UPMC alleged— in the context of a ­labor dispute—­t hat it employed nobody, the hospital system was in the news for setting up a holiday food bank for its own workers to share food with one another.13 Poverty wages, understaffing, stress, precarious scheduling, and workplace disrespect often come with the job for ­people who wash and feed bodies, do laundry, change sheets, clean rooms, administer medi­c ation, run tests, provide therapies, and proffer emotional support. The paradox, then, consists in the extraordinary proliferation of this kind of employment, suggesting its increasing social importance, alongside the economic exclusion of so many who perform it. This exclusion marks a sharp contrast with the city’s celebrated working-­class past. From US Steel Tower (relabeled by UPMC), the hospital ­giant looks down on a town still nicknamed Steel City. The local beer is Iron City; the football franchise is the Steelers; The Next Shift 6 ­Table I.1. Top twenty-­five urbanized counties by percentage of workforce employed in health care and social assistance, 2017 County Largest city Bronx County, New York Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania New Haven County, Connecticut Cuyahoga County, Ohio Kings County, New York Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Suffolk County, Mas­sa­chu­setts Essex County, New Jersey Monroe County, New York Worcester County, Mas­sa­chu­setts Essex County, Mas­sa­chu­setts Hartford County, Connecticut Norfolk County, Mas­sa­chu­setts St. Louis County, Missouri Queens County, New York Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Westchester County, New York Erie County, New York Nassau County, New York Baltimore County, Mary­land Wayne County, Michigan Pinellas County, Florida Multnomah County, Oregon Hamilton County, Ohio Hidalgo County, Texas US national average The Bronx Philadelphia New Haven Cleveland Brooklyn Pittsburgh Boston Newark Rochester Worcester Lynn Hartford Quincy St. Louis Queens Milwaukee Yonkers Buffalo Hempstead Baltimore Detroit Saint Petersburg Portland Cincinnati McAllen —­ Workforce employed in health care and social assistance (%) 25 19 19 19 18 18 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 15 14 “Urbanized counties” are the one hundred counties nationwide with the largest workforces. Source: Data are from United States Census Bureau, 2017 American Community Survey 1-­Year Estimates, Industry by Sex for the Civilian Employed Population 16 Years and Over. the president need only invoke the city’s name to inveigh against environmental regulation; and only a few steelworkers remain (see Figure I.1.). Why does this enormous new service-­sector working class not wield power or permeate public consciousness, even as the ghost of its vanished industrial pre­ de­ces­sor still hangs over places like Pittsburgh—­and indeed over the national po­liti­cal culture? I n t ro d u c t i o n 7 200,000 180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 Health care and social assistance 2000 2010 Metal industries Figure I.1 ​Employment in metal production and health care and social assistance, Pittsburgh area, 1950–2010. ​Data source: US Census. This mirrored historical paradox—­between care workers’ absent presence and industrial workers’ pre­sent absence—is the puzzle of this book. How do the simultaneous growth of this industry and the per­sis­tent marginalization of its workers fit into the country’s changing po­liti­cal economy? Why did the health care industry expand so much and in this par­tic­u­lar form? How did Steel City become a city of nursing assistants? This book shows how the industrial economy and the institutions that surrounded it created the care economy. In Pittsburgh, both the booming market for care and the huge workforce to supply care grew out of the social and po­ liti­cal context of the steel mill. The factories did not just make metal goods; they made ­people, institutions, a way of life, and a system of relationships—​ ­a social world. As the industrial basis of this world began to collapse, its inhabitants came ­under worsening social and economic pressure. To manage, they drew on the resources they had, embedded in the relationships and identities they had already built—­the everyday history they already had lived. Their world was melted down and recast, but it was still made from the same materials. The Po­liti­cal Formation of the Postwar Working Class ­ oday’s care economy emerged out of the economic transformation of the T 1970s. That pro­cess in turn makes sense only in light of the preceding 8 The Next Shift institutional architecture and social history shaping the postwar working class. And this postwar history was itself determined in the ­great po­liti­cal strug­gles of the 1930s and 1940s. The New Deal and its aftermath, in other words, set the stage for what would come ­later, in the 1970s. The dramatic world events of ­t hose early crisis years settled into an ambiguous, fragile equilibrium in the late 1940s. Stepping onto the stage as world hegemon, the United States embarked on the reconstruction of the shattered cap­i­tal­ist economies of Eu­rope and Asia and the containment of its socialist antagonist. At home, the acute social conflicts that had propelled the New Deal’s reform program froze over with the Cold War. This eventful history played out on the ground with par­tic­u­lar intensity in urban industrial centers like Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Pittsburgh—­places that lay at the heart of the New Deal po­liti­cal proj­ect, where g­ reat concentrations of the industrial working class had or­ga­nized and rebelled.14 The ­labor movement made the greatest advances in American history during the 1930s and 1940s. ­Labor became a central pillar of the Demo­cratic Party co­ali­tion, gained l­ egal recognition, and successfully or­ga­nized the mass production industries at the economy’s core, bringing about unpre­ce­dented working-­class unity across lines of race, ethnicity, and skill. In the aftermath of the strike wave of 1934, Congress passed the National ­Labor Relations Act (NLRA), seeking to reestablish stability in industrial relations by facilitating collective bargaining through the National ­Labor Relations Board (NLRB).15 When the Supreme Court constitutionalized collective bargaining in 1937, it was in a steel industry case from western Pennsylvania: National ­Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. The Court found that the internal operations of a vertically integrated firm like Jones & Laughlin affected and constituted interstate commerce, thus rendering constitutional the federal government’s regulation of the corporation’s l­abor relations. In its landmark decision, the Court quoted the NLRB’s conclusion that the steel works in western Pennsylvania “might be likened to the heart of a self-­contained, highly integrated body. They draw in the raw materials from Michigan, Minnesota, West ­Virginia, Pennsylvania, in part through arteries and by means controlled by the respondent; they transform the materials and then pump them out to all parts of the nation.”16 To govern production, the American state cast its eye on a vast industrial geography across Appalachia and the Midwest, with the steel mills of I n t ro d u c t i o n 9 Pittsburgh as the central focus. But if the stated purpose was the smooth flow of commerce, the specific instruments and objects of governance ­were ­human. The Court continued, “To carry on the activities of the entire steel industry, 33,000 men mine ore, 44,000 men mine coal, 4,000 men quarry limestone, 16,000 men manufacture coke, 343,000 men manufacture steel, and 83,000 men transport its product.” U ­ nder the NLRA as upheld in Jones & Laughlin, the industrial workforce itself now appeared as an object of state knowledge and intervention, conceptualized as a bounded social unit.17 Riding a wave of militancy and enjoying this new l­ egal standing, the l­ abor movement strode ahead rapidly. Union density, scarcely above 12 ­percent and largely excluded from mass production when the G ­ reat Depression began, ­rose above 30 ­percent by the end of World War II, led by the organ­izing of mass production workers by the militant new Congress of Industrial Organ­ izations (CIO). In Pittsburgh, de­cades of managerial domination gave way rapidly to a dynamic workers’ insurgency, ­unionizing the mills and ousting management’s puppets from local government. The war mobilization, and the full employment it generated, further entrenched the ­labor movement and extended the new administrative state into the regulation of economic life. Si­mul­ta­neously empowered and constrained by this incorporation into the state from 1937 to 1945, the left wing of the New Deal co­a li­t ion then ran aground in the de­cade’s second half.18 ­Labor started strong ­after the war’s end, when an enormous strike wave shook the country. Five p ­ ercent of the entire population joined work stoppages occurring across major industries. Along with Rochester and Oakland, Pittsburgh experienced a general strike in 1946, when tens of thousands of steelworkers, electrical workers, bus d ­ rivers, and streetcar operators walked out in solidarity with the employees of the power utility. Of the tens of millions of person-­days of work lost to strikes that year, Pennsylvania alone accounted for 17 ­percent. More than half of the total strike action occurred ­there or in Illinois, Michigan, New York, or Ohio—­the geo­graph­i­cal core of the New Deal’s mass base, resembling the industrial body anatomized in Jones & Laughlin.19 Such militant industrial action on such a narrow geo­g raph­i­cal basis exposed the l­abor movement to severe po­liti­c al backlash. Republicans retook power in the 1946 congressional elections, then promptly passed the Taft-­Hartley Act. This new ­legal regime allowed state right-­to-­work laws, 10 The Next Shift excluded new categories of workers from the protections of ­labor law (adding to the original NLRA’s exclusions of domestic and agricultural workers), compelled u ­ nions to expel Communists, and forbade a number of militant tactics. Following quickly on Taft-­Hartley’s heels was the failure of the l­ abor movement’s attempt to or­ga­nize the South and escape geo­g raph­ i­cal confinement.20 McCarthyism capped off this reactionary cycle, purging what remained of 1930s radicalism from virtually ­every sphere of public life: workplaces, schools and colleges, culture industries, and state institutions. As historian David Caute observes, “The violent epicenter of the anti-­Communist eruption in postwar Amer­i­ca was the steel city of Pittsburgh, in western Pennsylvania.” Catholic priests and local officeholders, with the aid of federal agents, rallied to turn the region’s heavi­ly southern and eastern Eu­ro­pean working class against the Soviets menacing ­t hese workers’ old countries. Local newspapers published the names and addresses of supposed Communists or even citizens who had signed petitions for the 1948 left-­w ing presidential candidate Henry Wallace. Factory man­ag­ers surveilled workers and fired t­ hose suspected of subversive activity. ­After the radical ­union representing thousands of workers in Pittsburgh’s large Westing­house plants, the United Electrical Workers (UE), refused to comply with Taft-­Hartley’s proscription of Communists, the CIO expelled UE and chartered a rival ­union to raid UE shops and pull away membership in a campaign aided by Catholic clergy, decimating the left-led ­union.21 This reaction against workers’ militancy in the late 1940s—­i nitiated by conservatives and abetted by liberals—­circumscribed and remade or­ga­nized ­labor. Power­ful ­unions like the United Steelworkers of Amer­i­ca survived and remained able to grind their par­tic­u­lar industries to a halt. But the dynamic of the previous fifteen years, in which ­labor had stood at the vanguard of a broad-­based demo­cratic po­liti­cal movement of the working class at large, ceased. Unions became more and more confined to a parochial economic proj­ect, advancing the narrow interests of their own memberships. Collective bargaining had never encompassed every­one, but from 1950 onward, it increasingly formed only insulated pools of economic security—no longer an advancing tide.22 This insulation s­ haped the welfare state and the longer development of Amer­i­ca’s po­liti­cal economy profoundly. I n t ro d u c t i o n 11 Collective Bargaining and the Divided Welfare State In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the New Deal was not defeated and rolled back but rather contained and compromised. Within the proj­ect of broad-­ based economic security, ­there had always been traditionalist as well as more radical tendencies. Pre­sent and power­ful from the start, t­ hese conservative strains came to the fore as radical challenges died off. Left-­led antiracist l­ abor organ­izing collapsed. Gays and lesbians faced a wave of repression. Feminist New Dealers and w ­ omen l­abor activists saw their visions of gender equality fall to rising backlash, as the norm of patriarchal family-­wage liberalism, already embedded in social policy from the 1930s, came into full effect. As time went on, the institutional apparatus of economic security—­t he welfare state and the ­labor movement—­continued to effect some downward re­ distribution of wealth, but this apparatus also si­mul­ta­neously secured the shape of the broader social hierarchy.23 Collective bargaining was a central arena for this pro­cess, which elevated industrial breadwinners into the primary subjects of economic security. Unable to preserve the war­time price-­control regime, ­labor began to negotiate for cost-­of-­living increases for its own members—­effectively constructing a zone of privatized monetary policy. Unions, having failed in their ambition to win a national health insurance program, committed to the strategy of negotiating private welfare benefit systems—­walled-­off zones of security for their members and dependents. The federal judiciary sustained this practice in two more steel industry cases, which together affirmed that fringe benefit negotiations w ­ ere a mandatory part of collective bargaining. In exchange for this privatized security, l­ abor abandoned its older ambitions for less work and more workplace democracy.24 This set of compromises, hashed out during the war and in the twilight of the New Deal, differentiated the or­ga­nized sections of the working class from their insecure counter­parts. While securing industrial workers, this arrangement disciplined them through that security. NLRB attorneys explic­itly drew this link between security and discipline: “Most employers who initiate pension plans expect and, it is presumed, get improved morale and employer-­ employee relations, and, in turn, improved production and greater efficiency, by removing one of the basic insecurities plaguing workers t­ oday.”25 12 The Next Shift ­ nder this solidifying system, the welfare state disbursed social citizenU ship and economic security to the working class through a divided and uneven regime centered on collective bargaining. Private ­labor markets in the industrial sector became the key instrument of social policy for the privileged subjects of the welfare state, providing health care, unemployment insurance and job security, se­niority rights, retirement benefits, and more. ­These forms of security rested upon collective employment relationships conducted u ­ nder public supervision, often eased with public subsidy and transacted through nonprofit third parties.26 Indeed, in no case was the welfare state’s tiered dynamic clearer than in health care, where the emergence of the New Deal state and its penetration of industry through collective bargaining led to the proliferation of third-­ party nonprofit health insurance and eventually to the massive expansion of private, nonprofit hospitals. When, as in the case of Medicare, the public sector stepped in more aggressively, it did so as a consequence of the effects of the public-­private regime: the rise of collectively bargained health insurance drove up the price of health care in the 1950s, pushing it out of reach for the el­derly, who u ­ nder this welfare state’s moral order w ­ ere deserving subjects—­leading to po­liti­cal demand for health insurance entitlements for retirees and, in second-­class status, the poor.27 Even direct public intervention, in other words, positioned the state as a consumer rather than supplier of health care, rounding out the uneven and divided welfare state rather than intruding on it. Private entities, encouraged and s­ haped by public policy, afforded working-­ class ­people a buffer against shocks, provided they arranged themselves socially in a par­tic­u­lar way and lived their lives along a par­tic­u­lar course. While encouragement of long duration in industrial employment dated to the early twentieth c­ entury, the New Deal had solidified this proj­ect, institutionalizing a normative life course—­“a ‘normal’ working life,” as Franklin Roo­se­velt’s Committee on Economic Security put it. Working-­class p ­ eople w ­ ere supposed to form heterosexual nuclear families, have kids, hold down a factory job full-­time and accumulate se­niority if a man or marry a factory worker if a ­woman, buy a ­house and a car, go on strike during contractually specified episodes, go to the hospital when sick, and retire with a pension. Collective security depended on ­these collective be­hav­iors. And while business cycles went up and down and structural pressures on employers mounted, I n t ro d u c t i o n 13 the near-­constant stimulus of Cold War military expenditure kept the or­ga­ nized core of the economy somewhat insulated, allowing intermittent but real pro­gress through this life course for a large, select group.28 Now the new public-­private welfare state constituted or­ga­nized industrial workers into actuarial pools synced to this life-­course sequence, securing them collectively b ­ ecause they advanced through the world en bloc temporally—­warping the fabric of time around themselves. This pattern underwrote their privileged place in the uneven welfare state. While it is widely known that the uneven distribution of the postwar working class in space gave rise to the explosive racial politics of integration in housing and schools, the uneven distribution of the working class in time ­shaped the stubborn postwar prob­lem of inflation: t­ hose who inhabited the more coordinated pockets of the economy ­were less exposed to rising prices. Si­mul­ta­neously, this pattern churned the rest of the economy in a worsening inflationary cycle.29 The security claimed by industrial workers, however, did offer shelter to a broader section of the working class through relationships of ­legal de­pen­ dency, concentrated in the ­family. In this sense, the male-­headed ­house­hold formed the elementary institution of the public-­private welfare state: a private social collectivity enjoying privileged ­legal status and public subsidy, sustained and expanded by social policy. The subjects of this order, the persons it recognized most fully, ­were the heterosexual white men who held most factory jobs and headed most working-­class ­house­holds. African American men had a real foothold within this world, but it was small, confined, and eroding. For w ­ omen, the main access point to security was marriage to such a breadwinner—an unlikelier prospect for Black ­women, as factory work eroded rapidly for Black men, in turn yielding a distinctive po­liti­cal orientation for Black ­women’s survival strategies and activism.30 The security that the public-­private welfare state produced for its subjects—​ ­the insiders of the collective bargaining regime—­was not just financial in form. In impor­tant ways, this security also consisted of privileged access to devalued and invisible forms of l­ abor. The f­ amily, the nucleus of the regime, provided the starkest example. Formally, the wife and c­ hildren of an industrial worker ­were his dependents; ­women and ­children accessed income and economic security through the male breadwinner, as encoded by custom and social policy alike. In practice, the industrial worker and his employer both 14 The Next Shift depended on the heteropatriarchal nuclear f­ amily, which was mass-­production capitalism’s instrument for obtaining and reproducing a stable workforce—­ although it was of course impossible to draw a distinction between affect and work in this decommodified, unquantified zone. Similarly, the increasingly comprehensive health benefits of the postwar period entitled their ­bearers to the insecure ­labor of care workers. Workers’ benefits, a transaction denominated in the economy of the becalmed insider zone, then ­were spent to import ser­v ices from the insecure outsider zone—­like an unequal international trade relationship in which one currency is far stronger than the other.31 This relationship between security for the insiders of collective bargaining, and insecurity and precarity for the outsiders who provided them care, was a po­liti­cal effect. It represented the narrowing of the possibilities opened by the New Deal. The establishment of a perimeter around collective bargaining and the privatization of the welfare state brought this effect into force. Initially, hospital workers had held unclear status ­under federal ­labor law. Swept up in the militancy of the 1930s, however, some groups of health care workers—­frequently w ­ omen and African Americans—­had pressed their case. In Pittsburgh, hospital workers revolted in 1940 over starvation wages and twelve-­hour days, seeking recognition for a new CIO ­union at Western Pennsylvania Hospital. Management refused. In the ensuing dispute, twenty-­six area hospitals sought an injunction against the ­union. “Hospitals,” the petitioners argued, “are not employers, nor are persons connected with them employees.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed: hospitals ­were a form of semipublic ser­vice, “not an industry.” To subject them to state ­labor law would “seriously imperil the management of the hospitals and the lives, health and safety of the patients.” Despite this ­battle in Pennsylvania—­which presaged what was soon to come in the late 1940s—­federal courts eventually affirmed in 1944 that hospital work affected interstate commerce and came u ­ nder the 32 jurisdiction of the NLRB. The conservative reaction of the late 1940s, however, shortly gave relief to hospital administrators. As Congress was considering the Taft-­Hartley Act, Senator Millard Tydings proposed an amendment to exempt hospitals from ­labor law, apparently prompted by the American Hospital Association. “They are not in interstate commerce. A hospital is a local institution, quite often kept up by the donations of benevolent persons,” Tydings argued; “no profit I n t ro d u c t i o n 15 is involved in this work.” The m ­ atter received l­ ittle further consideration, and Tydings’s amendment became law with Taft-­Hartley.33 Thus, although hospital work was formalized employment in ways that wife-­labor and domestic work w ­ ere not, it nevertheless remained legally beyond the protections of the New Deal state in ultimately similar ways—­ exempt from the Fair L ­ abor Standards Act’s wages and hours regulation as well as from the NLRA. At the cultural level, state regulation now positioned health care as an intimate sphere, more akin to the ­family than the factory. Health care was outside the circulatory system of commerce. Health care workers ­were not part of the working-­class body envisioned in Jones & ­ ere its external attendants. Laughlin—­rather, they w The postwar welfare state had an inside and outside, and the boundary was the limit of collective bargaining. But exclusion did not necessarily mean detachment; the excluded w ­ ere mobilized, and exploited, for a purpose. Altogether, this regime worked to produce the life and secure the social reproduction of the working class, albeit in differential and uneven forms demarcated by, and reinforcing of, race and gender. The system maintained ­people and communities, giving shape to their biological lives and molding the social realities of childhood, parenthood, marriage, sexuality, working life, old age, sickness, disability, and death. In ­doing so, the welfare state did not just bring about economic security or insecurity but also normalized and disciplined individual subjects. The welfare state in its vari­ous guises did all this through caregivers’ l­ abor but did not confer security upon their ­labor.34 Achieving public ends through the instrument of private and even intimate forms of social organ­ization submerged care work beneath layers of private power, often taking racialized and patriarchal forms. This regime gendered workers as caring subjects with vari­ous degrees of racial subordination—­a kin to wives or domestic servants—­and appropriated the product of their work for the regime’s larger social purposes. In its governance of care, the emerging postwar welfare state—­a hybrid of per­sis­tent New Deal liberalism and rising conservative reaction—­t hus established its own “fissured” or “dual” ­labor regime, long before the phenomenon we have come to know in recent years. This arrangement, encoded in the economic organ­ ization of caregiving, persisted through the entire postwar period—­even ­after ­labor law reform in the 1960s and 1970s—­a nd thus formed the groundwork for the postindustrial ­labor market. The historical relationship between 16 The Next Shift Pittsburgh hospitals’ claim not to be employers in 1940 and their repetition of this claim in 2013 was not reoccurrence—­before and a­ fter the postwar parenthesis—­but rather continuity. The Decline of Industry and the Rise of Care Over the postwar de­cades, employment in manufacturing underwent a long secular decline. Workers in industry ­after industry fell prey to some combination of automation, disinvestment, and capital flight, beginning as soon as the 1950s. Surface mining came to coal; decentralization and automation to auto assembly, electronics, and meatpacking; runaway shops to textiles; containerization to shipping; global trade competition to steel. Across the industrial areas of the country, communities secured through their attachment to ­these industries came u ­ nder intensifying economic pressure.35 This long dissolution of the industrial working class happened, however, in the context of the postwar welfare state. Across the industrial United States and the entire global North, working-­class ­people responded to the secular crisis of manufacturing employment by making demands on state institutions, directly in po­liti­cal forms and indirectly through mass be­hav­ior as social ser­vice consumers. And across the entire deindustrializing world, a wave of welfare state expansion followed in the immediate aftermath, as governments responded to t­hese demands and sought to manage the appearance of new forms of poverty amid the postwar plenty.36 In the United States, we have not understood this po­liti­cal phenomenon as a single event but rather know it as a sequence: the War on Poverty, the ­Great Society, the urban uprisings, the welfare rights and Black Power movements, the Young Lords, l­abor’s rank-­and-­file rebellion, the fiscal crisis of the state, and stagflation. As displacement widened from a phenomenon confined to African Americans and Latinos across northern cities and white ­people in discrete pockets during the 1950s and 1960s to a general malady of the working class in the 1970s and 1980s, the prob­lem expanded gradually from one of impoverished areas to a full-­blown macroeconomic crisis. And it mobilized increasing state responses—­a lbeit not all of one kind.37 In health policy and economics, a substantial body of evidence shows that poverty, job loss and unemployment, aging populations, generous insurance policies, and well-­capitalized health systems all may contribute to I n t ro d u c t i o n 17 e­ ither poor population health, high rates of utilization of the health care system, or both. Th ­ ese phenomena of course may occur separately. But t­ here exists a distinctive historical pro­cess that produced all of them together: deindustrialization. The social formations left b ­ ehind by manufacturing w ­ ere—at the level of the population—­disproportionately aged, sick, unemployed, impoverished, and yet relatively well insured. This generalization does not mean that each individual in a Rust ­Belt town was el­derly, ailing, broke, and well insured, nor that the only way t­ hese phenomena occur is through deindustrialization. Nor, of course, does health trou­ble happen only by economic mechanisms or only to working-­class p ­ eople. Neither does old age affect only the dispossessed—­particularly in a society enjoying lengthening life spans. Disproportionately large pockets of p ­ eople in all t­ hese categories, however, could be found in vari­ous overlapping patterns, left b ­ ehind as the legacy of manufacturing and the industrial workers’ welfare state. As manifested at the aggregate level, this demographic and economic configuration channeled the experience of job loss into the form of patient demand, flowing through the doors of the hospitals built up to serve the market formed by the insured working class. This pro­cess coincided with rising economic pressure on single-­breadwinner h ­ ouse­holds to bring in more wages, pushing ­women into the l­ abor market and decoupling the rising demand for care from the supply of nonwaged care work that once helped to manage that demand—­f urther speeding its flow into institutional settings. With the secular crisis of industrial employment, the working-­class population demanded more care. ­Women, increasingly pushed out of the nonwaged domestic sphere by economic pressure, w ­ ere pulled into a booming ­labor market in care work. When ­women sought waged employment in the 1970s and 1980s, they entered a sector already long since cordoned off by the institutionalized racial and gendered logics of the postwar welfare state.38 As the social reproduction of the working class became an increasingly vexed question, the preexisting system of subsidized health consumption elevated health institutions, turning them into prime points of access to care beyond the ­house­hold. B ­ ecause of the health care system’s fragmented, public-­ private structure—­linking everyday, labor-­intensive care provision to the profits of insurers, drug companies, and investors—­and ­because of the system’s access to a market in the devalued l­ abor of care workers, the health care 18 The Next Shift system had the slack to accommodate rising demand for mass care. The public and privatized institutions of health provision established over the postwar years pumped income into working-­class communities as other sources of security collapsed. While Medicare and collectively bargained programs ­were predominant, even Medicaid, the poor stepchild of health insurance, saw its bud­getary footprint grow by almost half from 1981 to 1988—­whereas the food stamp program, by comparison, shrank over the same period.39 Rising social need thus met a relatively obliging health care system, which grew countercyclically to absorb the shock of industrial employment’s collapse. The institutions of social policy constructed between the 1930s and the 1960s worked to shunt the social crisis of deindustrialization into the health care system. At the bottom of the ­labor market, waged care work proliferated, responding to the pro­cess of industrial decline. In historical perspective, the pro­cess appears in close parallel to the rise of mass incarceration. Like the expansion of the prison system in the final de­cades of the twentieth ­century, the rise of the health care industry offered an economic fix to the social crisis brought about by deindustrialization, channeling public expenditure and state power into the management of surplus population, generating employment, profits, and social stability.40 In this light, the relationship between the midcentury “egalitarian” period and our own time looks quite dif­fer­ent. It was postwar liberalism that created the public-­private welfare state that remains with us; that accepted the exclusion of huge categories of workers from social protection; that laid the groundwork for mass incarceration; that elevated the heteropatriarchal nuclear f­ amily into the only acceptable form of working-­class ­house­hold; that established widespread racial segregation in housing; that turned to financial markets to help policymakers govern through fiscal crisis; and that established a pluralist regime for l­abor law that could be captured by employers.41 Still traveling down this continuous historical path, we would be wrong to see the early twenty-­first c­ entury as a return to the Gilded Age. As a general rule, t­ hese compromises reflected apparent po­liti­cal necessity. In many cases, conservatives forced the settlement on liberals. We should not read ­these outcomes as evidence that the postwar welfare state was essentially “good” or “bad,” “exceptional” or “normal.” The point is not to exceptionalize what was distinctive about this period of history but to provin- I n t ro d u c t i o n 19 cialize it: to see the factory worker, and the social order built around the factory worker, as embedded within larger and ongoing historical pro­cesses. Industrial employment was the key node in the mesh of power governing and shaping a larger population, to which the formal employee was linked in hierarchical, asymmetrical relationships of interdependence through the ­family. But this arrangement deteriorated over time as factory workers lost their jobs, gradually turning an apparently narrow economic prob­lem into a broadly social prob­lem as it widened to destabilize a growing population. This ­later widespread instability, when deindustrialization manifested socially as a prob­lem of populations of disposable and dependent ­people, allows us to look back and see how the New Deal state was always engaged in a proj­ect of securing, maintaining, reproducing, and ordering the life of the population. This proj­ect became evident when its basis eroded.42 Health care as a site of employment expanded in the United States in ways roughly parallel to what happened in other wealthy cap­i­tal­ist democracies. Yet, in other wealthy socie­ties undergoing deindustrialization, while health care employment grew, health care provision did not depart markedly from other aspects of welfare states; health care provision grew as welfare states did. In the American context, in contrast, the health care system stood virtually alone, booming dramatically alongside punitive social policy. Health care, ­because it was so deeply enmeshed in private markets and profitable accumulation opportunities, continued to attract public expenditure—­a lbeit in increasingly warped and anomalous ways, as health care departed more and more from the economic ruination that surrounded and fed it. It is in this sense no coincidence that the United States began to depart markedly from other rich democracies in terms of health care spending only in the early 1980s, when the ax swung for the rest of the American welfare state.43 Why Pittsburgh? ­ ecause the welfare state was privatized, it was also geo­graph­i­cally uneven, B following the patchy distribution of industrial employment. Deindustrializing places then shared similar experiences, as job loss led to crisis; crisis stimulated pressure on the institutions of social reproduction; and the industries that could attract public investment and meet po­liti­cal and social 20 The Next Shift demand, answering that pressure, grew. This pattern was not l­imited to the United States, although it flowed through dif­fer­ent institutional channels and produced disparate social and po­liti­cal outcomes in vari­ous national contexts.44 While some version of the argument ­here likely applies to other cities, Pittsburgh and its surrounding area exaggerate key features, revealing dimensions that might other­w ise remain invisible. The region’s social fabric was warped by steel, but in ways that amplified what was generally true of industrial centers. This book thus takes as its territory of examination Allegheny County and the surrounding counties, which formed an economic unit: the city in the center; steel mills and other factories in the inner ring of surrounding blue-­collar towns; white-­collar suburbs in the next layer; then coal mining and agricultural areas farther out, dotted with smaller industrial towns.45 The drama of industrial decline appeared in particularly stark and vis­i­ble form in Pittsburgh. From 1930 to 1960, the local economy grew at only half the rate of the national economy.46 The simultaneous economic dominance and stagnation of steelmaking, in turn, gave shape to the rest of the metropolitan po­liti­cal economy. Pittsburgh strained ­under the weight of the decaying industrial g­ iant in its core, and the signs ­were vis­i­ble throughout the region’s social fabric. For almost a ­century, ­because of the dominance of a single declining industry, the region has failed to attract major migration streams from ­either the South or overseas, yielding the city’s stagnating population enduring demographic makeup: approximately 70 ­percent white and 25 ­percent African-­American. As a result of its economic composition, postwar Pittsburgh also developed a pronounced version of the household-­workplace divide that characterized the postwar period broadly. W ­ omen worked for wages at a far lower rate than in the country as a w ­ hole: 30.8 ­percent in the city’s metropolitan area in 1960, compared with 40.2 ­percent nationwide.47 The economic compulsion for ­women to seek waged work was weaker b ­ ecause of the large number of high-­ wage working-­class jobs for men in the steel industry, while the demand for unwaged care was exaggerated. In Pittsburgh, the growth of the health care sector that characterized postwar Amer­i­ca generally was also exaggerated. By the late 1970s, Pittsburgh was consuming health care at prodigious rates and, to ser­v ice this demand, I n t ro d u c t i o n 21 had more health care workers per capita than any other major metropolitan area—17.3 full-­time equivalent workers per thousand p ­ eople in the population, next to a national average of 13.8 at the de­cade’s end.48 Accelerating this sectoral growth was the steep aging of the metropolitan population, itself an effect of long-­term industrial decline. The large, youthful cohort that entered the steel mills a­ fter World War II was never fully replaced as the industry tended downward. U ­ nder the rule of se­niority, opportunity thus declined most strongly for young p ­ eople, who tended increasingly to out-­migrate. In 1950, 38 ­percent of Pittsburgh-­a rea steelworkers ­were over the age of forty-­five; in 1980, half w ­ ere. By 1990, Pittsburgh would become the second-­oldest urbanized metropolitan area in the country—­behind only Florida’s Broward County.49 Dependence on steel, in other words, drove Pittsburgh to mobilize its care workforce at high levels of intensity. The maintenance and reproduction of working-­class life ­were routed institutionally through steel production, so the decline of steel production had immediate implications for caregiving. Sites of caregiving, from the h ­ ouse­hold (­earlier) to the hospital (­later on) developed a larger role; their footprint grew. This development, while tethered to steelmaking by social policy, also outlasted the end of steel and indeed grew further in response to deindustrialization. By following the thread of care through the transformation of Pittsburgh, we uncover the origins of t­ oday’s polarized economy. What Is at Stake? This book traces an arc of transformation, as Pittsburgh’s working class endured a crisis of social reproduction and recomposed itself. The narrative expands from the claustrophobic midcentury factory and h ­ ouse­hold to the broader scales of neighborhood and public institutions. As the focus widens, the book works its way outward from within the secured world of the postwar welfare state, and a narrative that begins with the largely white, ­unionized industrial workers of the steel mills concludes with largely African American low-­wage hospital workers. Grasping the changing composition of the working class requires us to explore the real historical linkages between ­these social groups. ­Doing so, in turn, requires a historical approach that, on the one hand, takes in the structural change of corporations and institutions for 22 The Next Shift which traditional archival sources are available and, on the other hand, enters the pores of daily life. It is not pos­si­ble to understand the need for, or production, of care, without exploring intimate experience; this intimate sphere is linked h ­ ere to larger social consequences. L ­ abor may be imbued with feeling, even love, while still being exploitative or coercive.50 For this exploration, I have relied frequently on workplace rec­ords where available and social work studies and interview transcripts already conducted and archived. As a city made in the image of the second industrial revolution, Pittsburgh has been the subject of intense social inquiry for more than a ­century, although with more focus on white workers’ experience—an archival unevenness I have been only partly able to correct.51 I have also conducted a number of my own interviews, focusing in par­tic­u­lar on health care workers, especially African Americans, to compensate for the archival gap of the ­later period of this study. Some interviewees shared life stories that touch on the experiences of friends or f­ amily who ­were not interviewed themselves; o ­ thers may be at risk of employer retaliation. For this reason, I have changed the names of all of my own interviewees except ­those who have entered the public rec­ord on their own account or who are retired. This book is closely attuned to the rhythms, market and nonmarket alike, that rule care provision and the interplay between ­these rhythms. Caregiving happens in time and over time. Care habituates us to the temporal path of the life course, in what­ever form that path has been institutionalized. Care raises ­children; binds individuals into kinship; eases the passage into old age; manages sickness, disability, and bad luck; and orients us t­ oward death. The need for care and the provision of care alike can be understood only in relation to the socially constructed, uneven experience of time’s passage.52 The health care industry, meeting needs not met elsewhere and attracting investment not available elsewhere, has hypertrophied, sprawling into a vast web of social intervention in the economy. Health provision took contradictory, perverse forms as a result of its baroque pattern of incentives and its fractured orga­nizational structure. While dehumanizing and exploitative of patients, the industry also continues to represent a major form of public and semipublic support for social reproduction, inducing millions to depend on it for a strange, degraded kind of security. Despite policymakers’ constant efforts to rein in costs, health care remains a point of access to expansive so- I n t ro d u c t i o n 23 cial expenditure, and a vast profitable industry prospers by operating this nexus. The industry’s growth represents, in other words, a paradoxical privatized socialization pro­cess within capitalism, with the residual legacy of the postwar welfare state sustaining profits and employment in this massive industry. It finds its po­liti­cal basis in the constituencies that it has kept alive, figuratively and, in the end, literally.53 As the cohorts that most benefited from the public-­private welfare state have aged—as steelworkers retired and ­were not replaced—­the insider-­ outsider dynamic established during the postwar years increasingly has taken on an intergenerational, conflictual dimension. The secured older population stands increasingly po­liti­cally opposed to the insecure young, who not only experience exclusion as citizens from the top tier of social support but also, as workers, must supply at low wages the care that the el­der­ly’s benefits procure. This is a formula for generational warfare.54 At the same time, however, the booming care economy has become a site of working-­class formation. Care workers grow in numbers ­every year and must strug­gle constantly, in everyday life, with the perverse mechanisms of the health care system, which hold down wages and drive up stress and overwork. Thus far, however, care workers have experienced only ­limited success in collective action. The key question is their ability to mobilize broader po­ liti­cal support, since even the private-­sector health care industry is in so many re­spects a delegated arm of state power, implicating the broader public in manifold ways. Over recent years, care workers have maximized their own power when they have articulated the community of interest they share with their patients and communities, who are si­mul­ta­neously exploited and secured by the industry.55 The choice is thus between the politics of intergenerational conflict on the one hand—­based in the trade-­off between prices for care and wages for care workers—­and solidarity between care workers, patients, and their communities on the other. The historical pro­cess that created the health care industry has brought about the dynamic of generational conflict and, at the same time, created a force that might transcend it by renewing class politics in the United States—on the basis of security and care for all. The final implication of this book is thus that reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the working class around caregiving generates a potent po­liti­cal capacity. We all need care. In a more demo­cratic and 24 The Next Shift equal society, we would all be cared for, and we would all participate in caring for o ­ thers.56 This book tells the story of how we have already begun to move in this direction. It is a transformation we have backed into, not quite chosen. It is happening inadvertently, unevenly, erratically, and most of all unjustly. But it is happening already. What is left for us is to right it and see it through. 1 Down in the Hole Steelmaking Pittsburgh in the 1950s I “ recall in high school, the warning was given to us that if we d ­ idn’t study, do our homework, go on to college, we ­were g­ oing to end up in ‘that damn steel mill.’ That’s the terminology. ‘You’ll be a loser,’ ” remembers Howard Wickerham. “Well, I ended up g­ oing into the steel mill.” Fresh out of high school in 1966, Wickerham got his first job at United States Steel’s ­g iant Homestead Works. His ­father worked ­there too; having risen from the ranks to become a foreman, he helped his son obtain a skilled-­trade apprenticeship to become a welder at the mill. A path now unrolled in front of Wickerham, unplanned but easy enough to travel. “I still wanted to be a rock singer. It was just to pay bills. I’d gotten married, had a ­little girl.” He could feel himself, though, being tugged into the working-­class slipstream, the current of years—­measured out in shifts, pay periods, and seniority—­t hat could pull him all the way to old age. In his early days at Homestead, Wickerham brought his lunch in a paper bag, finding someplace to leave it u ­ ntil his break. When lunchtime came, he went to retrieve his sandwich, only to find it torn apart by rats, which ­were everywhere in t­ hese semienclosed, filthy, hot, riverbank environments. The more se­nior workers, he knew, brought lunches in metal pails for this reason. But Wickerham resisted buying one. He kept bringing sandwiches in paper bags, and he kept losing his lunch to rats. The pail was expensive, but that was not the prob­lem. The prob­lem was that if he caved and bought one, it meant that he was staying. As a young man facing for the first time the furnaces and gas lines, the terrific heat and noise, and the weathered men whose ­whole lives had been spent ­t here, he preferred to imagine that he had a fresh choice ­every day.1 26 The Next Shift Edward Salaj worked in the same department as Wickerham, also having obtained his job with the help of his steelworker f­ ather. Warned about rats, he opted for a lunchbox right away. His anxiety expressed itself in another way—­about his f­ ather, whose last years at the plant overlapped with Edward’s first. The son’s first day at Homestead, April 2, 1964, was twenty-­eight years ­after his f­ather’s, to the day—­a symbolically laden coincidence. “My f­ather had a fear during his last days working,” wrote Salaj in an unpublished memoir. “He had a fear he would be seriously injured or killed in the mill.” It was a reasonable fear. Almost e­ very steelworker had some near-­death experience. All could tell stories of horrible ­t hings they had seen.2 On his last day at Homestead, Salaj’s ­father was given a dangerous assignment on the mill roof, uprooting the trees that had sprouted ­there ­after a rainy period. He refused, instead accepting a discipline slip rendered meaningless by his imminent retirement. For his part, the younger Salaj soon found himself paired with an older welder, Joe Yatzko, who had been hired de­cades before at age thirteen, ­after his own f­ ather had been killed on the job.3 Death was in the mill’s fabric, part of its history both institutionally and personally. Mortality signaled the intergenerational continuity of class and the way that hard and dangerous work was not so much good or bad fortune but more simply fate—­something passed from ­fathers to sons. Edward Stankowski Jr., a con­temporary at Jones & Laughlin Steel, a few miles downriver from Homestead, wrote a memoir of his childhood on the city’s South Side and his life working at the mill, where he too had followed his ­father to work. To him, ­these factories seemed endowed with near-­ supernatural power. “I studied the mill ­every day of my life, wondering why the old men cursed and worshiped her,” wrote Stankowski. “What was beneath her rusty sheet-­iron skirts? What caused the flashes of fire that lit up the night, the explosions that shook our ­house, the soot that stained laundry my ­mother hung in our backyard?” 4 The mill was an elemental force, like a Greek god—in fact an early ­union had been called the Sons of Vulcan. Impetuously, the mill might take command of your entire life and could cast you aside again easily. It demanded awe and sacrifice and instilled terror and resentment. But in return it yielded a living, and indeed a world, for its p ­ eople and their city. Wickerham, Salaj, and Stankowski ­were white men, members of the mighty United Steelworkers of Amer­i­ca (USWA), employed at the height of D ow n i n t h e H o l e 27 the postwar boom in one of the best-­paid industrial workforces the world had ever seen. Two, Wickerham and Salaj, ­were skilled tradesmen, at the top of that workforce’s internal hierarchy. ­These w ­ ere the p ­ eople for whom the postwar period was an exceptional moment of security. At the time, such workers did so well that observers believed social class ceased to operate as a divisive force, the so-­called “postwar compact” or “labor-­management accord.”5 According to more recent interpretation, experiences of men like ­t hese three stood at the center of a unique moment in US history, when a l­imited but large swathe of working-­class Amer­i­ca gained security and social enfranchisement through strug­gle. Naming this era “the ­great exception,” historian Jefferson Cowie writes, “the postwar era, the period of the ‘­g reat exception’ in action, was an extraordinarily good time to be a worker. This was not simply ­because wages ­were ­going up to unpre­ce­dented levels and in­equality was ­going down but ­because the ­f uture was bright, work paid off, and t­ here was tremendous promise for the next generation.” 6 At one level, this argument is undeniable. Jack Metzgar, in his memoir of growing up in a steelworker h ­ ouse­hold in western Pennsylvania, writes, “If what we lived through in the 1950s was not liberation, then liberation never happens in real h ­ uman lives.” This was when the New Deal order and the golden age of capitalism reached their conjoint apogee. Cowie describes the moment’s emotional fabric as “an expansive sense of possibility,” and t­ here can be no doubt that working-­class ­people saw a dramatic rise in their standard of living and wielded a newfound po­liti­cal and social power.7 Yet something does not add up. If what they felt was an expanding sense of possibility, why did old men in Stankowski’s neighborhood curse the mill as well as worship it? Why did Salaj’s f­ ather go to work full of mortal fear—­​ a fear so strong that it was nearly the first t­hing Salaj described when he composed his own memoirs de­cades ­later? In a world of bright ­futures and promise for the next generation, why w ­ ere young men warned away from the mill? In such an exceptionally good time to be a worker, why did Wickerham dread staying so much that he let rats eat his lunch? How to make sense of the rust eating away at the postwar chrome? While historians now largely agree that management never ­really accepted any permanent peace with ­labor, this insight has only scarcely filtered down to the analytical level of daily life—as though the or­ga­nized, industrial working 28 The Next Shift class did not register the instability of its position u ­ ntil the onslaught of the 8 1970s and 1980s. This was not so. The World of Steel Steelmaking arose in Pittsburgh in the nineteenth ­century b ­ ecause of two ­factors: the city’s proximity to Appalachian coalfields and its position at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela meet to form the Ohio River. High-­quality “coke”-­grade coal was mined nearby in Pennsylvania. Iron ore came from the upper Midwest, around Lake Superior. (Iron generally traveled to coal.) Pittsburgh, the easternmost major port on the Mississippi River system, had access to ­t hese materials b ­ ecause of the river junction. As a result, it became an entrepôt between rail and river shipment, linking the East Coast and Midwest. The first steamboats to ply the Mississippi system w ­ ere built and launched ­there. Given such easy access to critical raw materials and necessary shipment routes, industrial capital began to accumulate in Pittsburgh over the course of the nineteenth ­century, drawing a growing stream of mi­grants to work.9 Mass production of steel in the twentieth c­ entury required an astonishing scale of operations. The mill complexes that turned out metal for Amer­i­ca’s cars, appliances, planes, ships, weapons, skyscrapers, bridges, pipelines, and highways reached a sheer immensity that few industries rivaled. If, in 1955, you got on a boat at Pittsburgh’s Point—­where the Monongahela, or “Mon,” and the Allegheny meet to form the Ohio—­and traveled east and south up the Mon t­ oward West V ­ irginia, you would have to go about twenty-­five miles upstream before you saw anything besides steel production wherever the riverbank was flat rather than sheer (see Map 1.1). Huge barges full of coal and iron ore steamed along the river. “Hot metal bridges,” special passageways for transferring iron melted down on one riverbank to furnaces on the other side, spanned the ­water. Train cars rattled along both banks. Whistles and sirens sounded all around. Jets of flame shot upward. G ­ reat plumes of smoke and dust—­graphite gray, coal black, ferrous red, or sulfurous yellow—­hung in the air. Heaps of slag—­the waste byproduct of the smelting process—­accumulated on hillsides, glowing and steaming. Tens of thousands of men moved around, busy about a vast complexity of tasks. Anne Yurcon lived in Homestead, uphill from the mill. “­People always D ow n i n t h e H o l e Alleghe ny R iv Alleghe ny County border Oh io Ri ve 29 er r PITTSBURGH J&L Pittsburgh Works US Steel Carrie Furnace US Steel Edgar Thomson Works Mesta Machine Co. US Steel Homestead Works US Steel Duquesne Works US Steel National Tube Works US Steel Irvin Works Yo ugh US Steel Christy Park Works i og yR hen eny C US Steel Clairton Works borde r M on on ga he la ounty Riv er . Allegh 0 3 miles 3 km Map 1.1 ​Steelmaking in the Mon Valley used to ask me if the noise from the trains both­ered us,” she remembered. “That meant the men ­were working.” The ­whole business cycle could be mea­ sured out in this way, in fires and smokestack emissions, in work schedules and the level of business at the establishments on the mill town’s main street.10 What happened within this vast complex? To begin, coke-­grade coal was baked in g­ reat ovens. Jones & Laughlin Steel did this work at its Pittsburgh Works; US Steel did it further up the Mon Valley at Clairton. This was the hottest, most noxious work in the entire steelmaking pro­cess and the department into which Black workers w ­ ere most likely to be slotted.11 From the coke plants, coke and coke gas w ­ ere transmitted to the blast furnaces for the first part of the smelting pro­cess. ­There, huge carloads of iron ore, coke, and limestone would be loaded from above in layers—­“charged”—­ into the furnace, then heated by igniting coke gas. The furnace itself towered two hundred feet above the river, lined with special refractory brick made to 30 The Next Shift D ow n i n t h e H o l e Figure 1.1 ​Aerial view of Jones & Laughlin Pittsburgh Works, creator unknown, date unknown. ​Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation Photo­graphs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center. 31 32 The Next Shift withstand tremendous heat. The furnace stood accompanied by g­ iant round tanks, feeding the fire superheated air. When lit, the coke and iron combined in the blast furnace into “hot metal,” molten iron, while the limestone absorbed impurities and formed into slag, a burning slick of byproduct. Workers drilled a hole in the furnace, letting the hot metal out, and skimmed the slag off the molten iron beneath. Through channels on the floor, the hot metal flowed out, to be poured into brick-­lined vessels (“torpedo cars”), and the slag moved ­toward disposal. When the batch was done, workers repaired what­ever parts of the furnace w ­ ere damaged. At ­every step of steelmaking, a significant part of the work was the constant repair of facilities damaged by the stress of continually hosting such extreme pro­cesses. In torpedo cars, molten iron moved on rails from the blast furnace to the open hearth, which completed the smelting pro­cess. Transferred to a “ladle” that could be lifted by crane and poured into the brick-­lined open hearth, the metal would cook with melted-­down scrap and limestone or dolomite, losing some excess carbon. ­After about eight hours, workers would tap the open hearth, and out would come molten steel, again with a slick of slag. With the slag separated and impurities burned off, the steel poured into huge molds to form ingots. Maintenance crews fixed any damage, and workers readied the next “heat.” At this point, the process—­more or less unitary ­until h ­ ere—­began to branch, depending on the product being made. Ingots underwent some combination of alloying with other materials, soaking in huge pits to maintain uniform temperature, pickling in acid baths, and reheating to be rolled, pressed, and milled into dif­fer­ent shapes. Huge overhead cranes lifted ingots and moved them around the plant. Dif­fer­ent plants had dif­fer­ent specialties: National Tube in McKeesport made tubing; Homestead made plate. A huge number of dif­fer­ent pro­cesses ­were necessary to make the wire, bars, plates, sheets, rails, and tubes that steel consumers required, out of which the modern world was built. A distinguishing feature of steelmaking was therefore the heterogeneity of the work. In 1950, in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, 134,494 p ­ eople worked in the industry. Of t­ hese, 6 ­percent w ­ ere man­ag­ers and professionals, and 8 ­percent ­were clerical staff. The remaining 86 ­percent, however, could be divided evenly into thirds between skilled craftsmen and foremen, semi- D ow n i n t h e H o l e 33 skilled operatives, and unskilled laborers. Commonly in a midcentury mass production industry, skill proportions tended more t­ oward a bell-­curve shape than steel’s flat line. Steel, lacking a single generic pro­cess, was more stratified. This stratification of skill was also a racial hierarchy: Black workers made up 14 ­percent of unskilled laborers, 7 ­percent of the semiskilled, and virtually none of the skilled trades. Recall that welders Wickerham and Salaj both got their tradesman jobs with the help of their f­ athers, suggesting the insularity of this work.12 In 1950, the US steel industry produced nearly one hundred million tons, more than at any previous point in its history. In the distinctive postwar American consumer landscape, steel was everywhere: in the frames of new interstate highways; in the shining appliances filling new suburban homes; in the pipelines that carried petroleum from oil fields; inside new towers rising in city centers undergoing urban renewal; and above all in the automobiles remaking American society. Beyond all ­t hese, however, was the enormous stimulus of the Cold War military machine, in high gear in 1950 for the Korean conflict, but in princi­ple capable of sustaining demand for steel in peacetime.13 At the beginning of the Cold War, American steel held an enviable global position, putting out 47 ­percent of global product—­leaving American producers generally unconcerned about international competition for most of the 1950s. Moreover, the domestic market was highly coordinated, with ­labor costs and product prices moving in sync across all the major firms, desensitizing steel companies to market pressure. As Gary Herrigel observes, “For most the first three de­cades of the postwar period, the US Steel com­pany and the United Steelworkers Union (USWA) effectively set American steel prices.” The major firms, commanding 80 ­percent of the domestic market, negotiated jointly with the u ­ nion and followed US Steel’s pricing, which in turn was synced to cost-­of-­living adjustments agreed upon in collective bargaining.14 Only distantly concerned about international competitors and coordinated against domestic market pressure, steelmakers accepted massive subsidies from the federal government in the 1940s and 1950s to expand capacity, which the firms pursued through extensive, not intensive, growth—­more and bigger plants, rather than more technically advanced and efficient ones. Steel companies, notoriously conservative in their corporate culture and seemingly secure in their oligopoly, opted for this course of so-­called “rounding out” 34 The Next Shift instead of installing the new and far more efficient basic oxygen furnace technology coming online in new plants in Eu­rope. Even as the technical superiority of the basic oxygen pro­cess became indisputable, management delayed installing the new furnaces through the 1950s in hopes of winning more favorable depreciation allowances from Congress. US companies ­were left with huge, outmoded productive capacity. In 1940, American steel capacity had stood at 81.6 million tons; over the next two de­cades, it grew steadily, to 148.6 million.15 The steel that built midcentury modernity was made in many places—­with major concentrations in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. But western Pennsylvania remained foremost, if on a clear decline: in 1947, the Pittsburgh district produced about one-­quarter of American steel, with Chicago the runner-up at one-­fifth. (Declining Pittsburgh and rising Chicago would meet at 21.5 ­percent of US output in 1958.) US Steel was headquartered in Pittsburgh. So was the USWA.16 The context of a huge incumbent industry, gradually becoming obsolescent and yet shielded and sustained by power­f ul institutions, decisively ­shaped the entire l­ abor market of the Pittsburgh region. In 1950, of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the metropolitan area, 863,001 ­were in the civilian workforce. Of t­ hese, three-­quarters w ­ ere men. Among employed men, almost two-­t hirds worked in manufacturing, mining, construction, rail, or trucking and warehousing. Greater Pittsburgh’s heavi­ly male workforce, in other words, was employed at blue-­collar l­abor to an astonishing degree; metal production led the way, with a quarter of all male employment. ­There existed a wide range of suppliers, shippers, and pro­cessors attached to steel, as well as parallel industries benefiting from the resources already clustered around metal: factory equipment manufacturer Mesta Machine; aluminum ­giant Alcoa; Pittsburgh Plate Glass; food pro­cessor Heinz; shipbuilder Dravo; and electrical manufacturer Westing­house. The residual one-­third of employed men not employed by manufacturers w ­ ere scattered across the rest of the economy—in retail, food and hospitality, utilities, public administration, banking and insurance—­with no major concentration. While Pittsburgh ranked high as the country’s fourth-­largest center of corporate headquarters in the 1950s (­after New York, Detroit, and Chicago), the significance of this specialization did not come from its ­labor market impact. Indeed, the weight of industrial production in Pittsburgh’s ­labor market was so ­g reat that manufacturing, construction, and transportation firms also D ow n i n t h e H o l e 35 formed the largest sector of w ­ omen’s employment—­largely in clerical positions. Such employment accounted for one-­fifth of working ­women. Beyond ­these jobs, smaller concentrations of working ­women ­were employed in health, education, telecommunications, hospitality, domestic ser­v ice, and retail.17 Bifurcated unevenly along one axis by gender, the l­ abor market was sliced along another by race. In 1950, the historical high point of manufacturing, the pattern of employment for African American men appears similar to that of white men: an overwhelming majority of Black wage workers ­were men, as with white wage workers; two-­t hirds of employed Black men worked in manufacturing, construction, mining, or transportation and warehousing, as with employed white men. African American men ranked lower in t­ hese industries and would find them harder to live off for long—­but they depended on blue-­collar work for subsistence to the same degree that white male workers did at this moment of industrial high tide. The more distinctive pattern in Black employment, however, occurred for w ­ omen. African American w ­ omen found work in hospitals, laundries, and food and drink ser­v ice, but a pink-­ collar world of jobs as secretaries, telephone operators, saleswomen, and teachers was largely closed to them. Black w ­ omen ­were driven instead into domestic work: 42 ­percent of employed Black w ­ omen in 1950 worked as domestics, next to 5 ­percent of employed white ­women.18 All t­ hese patterns of employment, however, orbited around the predominant place of manufacturing in general and steel in par­tic­u­lar. The region’s ­labor markets w ­ ere warped by the industrial ­giant at the center. What happened to steel happened eventually to every­one. The early tremors for that industry in the 1950s foretold not just the crisis of industrial work, but the transformation of all work. Steel and the Business Cycle While capacity in steel expanded steadily in the 1940s and 1950s, demand slackened ­after the end of the Korean War. The crisis that eventually overtook the industry began in a slow-­moving form in this context. Several prob­ lems, each manageable on their own, began to interact with increasing intensity. First, u ­ nionized workers bid up wages significantly. The USWA struck the entire basic steel industry in 1946, 1949, 1952, 1956, and 1959. 36 The Next Shift Across this period, in addition to securing fringe benefits, workers also won dramatic wage gains that easily outstripped inflation. By the end of the 1950s, the ­union secured increases that made its members the very symbol of the postwar promise to the US working class. In his 1959 “kitchen debate” with Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon made steel ­labor his first talking point. “Our steel workers as you know, are now on strike. But any steel worker could buy this h ­ ouse. They earn $3 an hour.”19 Although l­abor costs per ton ­were rising fast and plant productivity was not keeping pace, the industry remained profitable b ­ ecause l­abor was a relatively small proportion of all costs—­but the trend was unsustainable. Steel was a component of too many products for price increases to be inconsequential. If workers won wage hikes and management passed on the cost in higher prices, then the result would be an inflationary cycle: rising steel prices caused auto prices and construction costs to increase, causing workers who ­were strong enough to demand higher wages to afford cars and homes. This cycle would offer relative mercy to the organized—­strong ­unions and oligopolistic industries—­a nd punish ­t hose in competitive markets in ­labor or goods.20 The prospect of such a cycle triggered policymakers’ alarm. Inflation would threaten the living standards of Americans outside the economy’s industrial core. More direly, the strength of the dollar had major geopo­liti­cal importance: US investment in postwar Eu­rope had flooded the continent with dollars. If the dollar depreciated significantly, a major destabilization could result. This outcome, undoing the work of the Marshall Plan, was unwelcome at the height of the Cold War. The po­liti­cal regime of the United States was thus balanced, both domestically and internationally, on the strong dollar. Steel bargaining therefore spilled over from economic conflict and into politics.21 The federal government involved itself with steel industry bargaining and pricing throughout the postwar period. Agreements between l­ abor and management in steel ­were worked out in the Oval Office. Famously, the Truman administration attempted to nationalize the industry in 1952 to maintain war­time wage and price stability. In 1956, despite an avowed hostility to politicized collective bargaining, President Eisenhower helped broker an end to an industry-­wide strike and was angered by the subsequent inevitable price increase. He issued repeated warnings in public, including in his State of the 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 Total capacity (000s of tons) Total production (000s of tons) Figure 1.2 ​Operations in the steel industry, 1940–1960. ​Data source: American Iron and Steel Institute, Annual Statistical Report, vari­ous years, as presented in Paul A. Tiffany, The Decline of American Steel: How Management, ­Labor, and Government Went Wrong, (New York: Oxford University Press), 1988, ­table 2.1. 450% 400% 350% 300% 250% 200% 150% 100% 50% 1958 1957 1956 1955 1954 1952 1953 1951 1949 1950 1948 1947 1945 1946 1944 1942 1943 1941 1940 0% US consumer price index Employment cost per hour in steel Basic steel prices Figure 1.3 ​Wage and price growth in steel, as percentage of 1940. ​Credit: Data source: Bureau of ­Labor Statistics, as presented in Paul A. Tiffany, The Decline of American Steel: How Management, ­Labor, and Government Went Wrong, (New York: Oxford University Press), 1988, ­table 2.4. 38 The Next Shift Union address, about steel prices. Then in mid-1957, when agreed-­upon cost-­ of-­living adjustments and wage increases for the workers ­were set to kick in, US Steel announced another price hike. The other companies in the steel cartel quickly followed suit. At the same time, a recession set in—­the worst in twenty years. Policymakers and economists w ­ ere confounded to see inflation rise in tandem with unemployment—­two variables widely held to work at odds. (Two de­cades letter, a more severe occurrence of this phenomenon would be called “stagflation.”)22 The conflict between policymakers and steelmakers escalated in parallel with the economic downturn. Senator Estes Kefauver, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Mono­poly, opened an investigation into anticompetitive practices in industry, focusing immediately on steel. Steel management attributed inflation to excessive wage demands. As an internal US Steel memo complained, “If the steel companies had continued to charge 1946 prices and had absorbed the increased costs between then and 1957 . . . ​ bankruptcy would have occurred and they would not have been able to continue to operate at all.”23 Steel companies w ­ ere ­u nder steady pressure to yield wage hikes to the workers but had not invested in the technological upgrades that might make productivity growth pay for ­those raises. In the Kefauver hearings, US Steel’s general counsel had voiced the com­pany line, arguing that the potential of the basic oxygen furnace “cannot be forecast.” Industry leaders continued in their conservative habit of financing capital improvements through retained earnings, rather than debt, which made the cost of installing the new basic oxygen furnace technology daunting, even for profitable firms. The writer Annie Dillard, who grew up in the midcentury Pittsburgh managerial elite, recalled of her ­father’s social world, “I knew what they hated: ­labor u ­ nions, laziness, spending, wildness, loudness. They d ­ idn’t buy God. They d ­ idn’t buy anything if they could help it. And they ­didn’t work on spec.”24 To afford steady wage hikes, steel companies fell back on steady and coordinated price increases, but growing po­liti­cal pressure now made this strategy difficult. In the second half of the 1950s, steel companies set out to loosen this squeeze in the only way feasible. If re­sis­tance to technological investment ruled out increasing productivity, and po­liti­cal opposition precluded raising prices, what was left was to cut costs. This effort s­ haped the daily experi- D ow n i n t h e H o l e 39 ence of the thousands of men who worked in Pittsburgh’s overgrown, semi­ obsolescent steel mills.25 Signs of Rust Without major investment in new technology, cost control came down to ­human effort. “­Here then is the most basic ele­ment of the prob­lem,” stated a 1956 “pro­gress report” for upper management at US Steel. “It is to narrow or close the gap between an 8% rate of employment cost increase and a 2% rate of productivity gain.” What management proposed was driving fewer workers to do more. “Our industrial engineering work tells us that as an overall condition our production and maintenance workers are utilized at a rate equaling about two-­t hirds of their normal capacity. This means ­t here is room for tremendous improvement.” Exploiting this “room for tremendous improvement,” however, was not a straightforward m ­ atter.26 Most basically, no one even knew how to mea­sure productivity. The material details of the pro­cesses involved ­were so diverse that they defied being abstracted into a single mea­sure. The only clear gauge was man-­hours per ton. Since 1940, this figure had increased at an annual average rate of 2.7 ­percent—­a fairly impressive clip. The ­union cited this figure as evidence of growing productivity, meaning that the com­pany could afford wage hikes. Such a raw output-­to-­hours calculation gave undue credit to l­abor, management retorted. The calculation mistook extensive expansion for productivity growth: “Such figures in steel mostly reflect a result which comes about largely through relatively increased volume.” That is, production was growing more efficient mainly by economies of scale, rather than improvement in methods. The more steel the com­pany made, the more efficiently it operated. The crude output-­to-­hours ratio, the com­pany argued, discounted a wide range of ­factors that could affect efficiency: “1. Volume and customer requirements. 2. Capital improvements of facilities. 3. Product variations as to grade of steel, size, shape, e­ tc. 4. Improved methods and practices. 5. Quality of raw materials. 6. Quality of purchased goods and ser­v ices. 7. Employee per­ for­mance rates.”27 Although US Steel had not settled on its own method for calculating productivity growth by the time of the May 1956 pro­gress report, management 40 The Next Shift made projections anyway: “It appears that if wage and benefit increases are to be derived only from increased productivity in its true sense, and if ­owners of the enterprise are to share in the benefits of increased productivity, then the annual wage and benefit increases cannot exceed an outside figure of about 2%.” Yet that figure—­t he wages and benefits bill—­had in fact been growing since 1941 at an average annual rate of 7.81 ­percent.28 How could management close the gap? The main source of savings lay in shrinking crew sizes. Smaller crews ­doing the same work would feel to workers like an acceleration in the intensity and rate of l­ abor—­for which com­ pany leadership would require a new level of orga­nizational solidity. The bosses had to pre­sent a front of unity and determination, not just at the bargaining t­ able, but ­every day on the shop floor. Like workers, bosses w ­ ere or­ga­nized. Considering the economic culture of Pittsburgh, economist Benjamin Chinitz saw “an environment dominated by big business. It manifests itself in many ways, such as the kinds of social clubs [someone] can belong to, the residential areas he w ­ ill comfortably fit into, the business organ­izations he can join, and so forth.” Dillard remembered the cohesion of the social world that the man­ag­ers had made. The urban landscape was littered with their monuments: factories, mansions, and skyscrapers. “Our classmates’ ­fathers worked in t­ hese buildings, or at nearby corporate headquarters for Westing­house Electric, Jones & Laughlin Steel, Rockwell Manufacturing, American Standard, Allegheny Ludlum, Westing­ house Air Brake, and H.J. Heinz. . . . ​They must have known, ­those ­little boys, that they would inherit corporate Pittsburgh, as indeed they have.” In 1957 the management of Duquesne Works surveyed supervisors to generate a rec­ord of “civic activities,” which the superintendent wanted to encourage. The result was a roster of participation in the pillars of middle-­class civil society: scores ­were involved in the Boy Scouts, the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis, the Lions, and the Rotary. Through such middle-­class identity groups, the Pittsburgh elite passed on its values and recruited its subordinate portions—­lower and m ­ iddle management—to t­ hose values. “Man­ag­ers w ­ ere required to contribute monetarily to the Boy Scouts and even donate their time to Boy Scout proj­ects. Boiler Shop man­ag­ers posted notices on a black board in their offices when contributions ­were due and did not attempt to hide it,” recalled Salaj. “I even knew a person that had joined the Boy Scout Troop in my neighborhood even though he lived miles away in another neigh- D ow n i n t h e H o l e 41 borhood.” Wickerham’s f­ather conspicuously joined the Masons to rise above the bottom rank of management—­but his mobility was blocked anyway, ­because he was “too close to the men.”29 The mid-1950s brought an intensified campaign by com­pany leadership to solidify its workplace hegemony, first within management, beginning from above. “We cannot assure our long-­term growth and pro­gress,” warned US Steel’s head, “­unless we take steps to maintain our strength in the one area where all growth and pro­gress must originate—in management.” The superintendents of US Steel’s Duquesne Works or­ga­nized themselves into a weekly luncheon club. The club charged monthly dues, as well as fees for tardiness and unexcused absence. A member could be fined twenty-­five cents for sitting in the wrong seat, complaining about the food, asking for a special meal, talking shop, or using “Forbidden Words.” It was an explicit rule that the rules be unspoken. And if the club voted on some ­matter, t­ here was a fine for being the sole vote on e­ ither side. The fines w ­ ere nominal, but they communicated the point of the group: to reproduce the normative discipline, hierarchy, and consensus of industrial operations within the social life of plant management.30 When the superintendents of the plant threw a party for a larger group than their luncheon club, similarly elaborate planning was involved. The management of Duquesne Works was, at nearly all times in the late 1950s and 1960s, planning a golf outing or country club party. When supervisors did not participate, management took note and followed up with their superiors. “I was pleased to note that 87% of your supervisors ­were members of this organ­ization. As you know, it is rather difficult for more than 500 supervisors in this plant to get to know each other during working hours,” one superintendent wrote to a subordinate. “I hope you ­will encourage all of your supervisors to participate in the affairs of the Supervisor’s Club in 1959.” Monthly parties alternated monthly between all-­male “stag” affairs and ­family events—­dances, picnics, and banquets.31 During the 1954 recession, the com­pany launched an incentive plan for man­ag­ers. Explaining the plan, leadership warned of a coming “return of the buyer’s market,” which would “separate the men from the boys” along lines of cost per­for­mance. The incentive scheme operated by calculating a base expectation of cost of operations at the level of an entire plant, then rewarding plant man­ag­ers if they collectively beat the expectation. In other words, the 42 The Next Shift scheme translated the question of managerial social cohesion from symbolism to economics. A 1956 follow-up study at National Tube Works in McKeesport revealed significant income gains for supervisors who had moved to the plant-­wide incentive plan.32 Plant-­level management also worked to advance the campaign. At Duquesne Works, management launched a general evaluation of “management development practices.” The program “appraised” man­ag­ers for “ability to plan and to maintain maximum staff ser­v ices of highest quality.” Man­ag­ers w ­ ere assessed for adherence to plant and com­pany practices. “In other words, are his actions t­ hose of an individual, or a member of a team. . . . ​Consider also the degree to which he seeks and accepts responsibility in his community, civic, po­liti­cal, and other outside life. . . . ​Consider also the extent to which he has exhibited loyalty to the com­pany and his superiors.” Man­ag­ers found wanting in some aspect went through a ­whole range of trainings: from study sessions with the ­labor contract to vocational extension classes to the “Dale Car­ne­gie” training, a fourteen-­week program in public speaking and leadership skills.33 In September 1956, US Steel launched a study of management’s working conditions at all of its plants. W ­ ere t­ here up-­to-­date orga­nizational charts in ­every department? Did individuals know their job descriptions? Did man­ ag­ers have their own parking and eating facilities and air-­conditioned office space? The inquiry was directed by two related purposes: to ensure the smooth functioning of the plant bureaucracy and to clarify the internal hierarchy of each factory’s social structure. Clear hierarchy, and effective repre­sen­ta­tion of this hierarchy in the plant’s symbolic order, w ­ ere necessary.34 The prob­lem was that foremen on the shop floor might identify more closely with workers than with higher levels of management. While t­ here was ­little risk of this in departments with larger African American workforces—­since Black foremen ­were virtually unheard of and shop-­floor racism was a given— it was an everyday real­ity in most of the plant. This was the identification that Howard Wickerham believed prevented his f­ ather, a foreman who “stayed close to the men,” from being promoted. Anna Mae Lindberg remembered, “My ­brother Bill was active in the ­union. My other ­brother was a foreman.” For Ed Stankowski, t­ here was nothing unusual about the memory of sitting around in the locker room as his ­father—­a nother wage worker—­a nd his foreman, Moe, teased Ed about sex. “ ‘Are you gettin’ any mud for your turtle?’ D ow n i n t h e H o l e 43 Moe asked me, winking and poking me in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Gettin’ any mud, huh?’ My ­father chuckled while I turned red.” It was the same foreman who would “pat me on the back a­ fter a tough shift in the furnace . . . ​ and say, ‘You put in a good day, hunky.’ ” The class barrier was not culturally impermeable. The risk that the culture of working-­class men might activate shared norms of masculinity and override the culture of management was pr

This 2020 Thor Motor Coach Gemini 24SX was built on a 2019 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500XD chassis and is powered by a 3.0-liter turbodiesel V6 linked with a seven-speed automatic transmission. Finished in beige, the van is equipped with 16″ steel wheels, a dually rear axle, a 360-degree camera system, a side awning, a power generator, a roof-mounted climate control system, power slide-out walls, and water tanks. Inside, front captain’s chairs are joined by automatic climate control, a Kenwood stereo, cruise control, a kitchenette, a dining area, a bedroom, a shower, a lavatory, and two televisions. The vehicle had been registered in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania prior to the selling dealer’s acquisition in January 2026, and its odometer now indicates 20k miles. This Thor Gemini 24SX is offered in Illinois with a clean Carfax report and a clean New York title. The van is finished in Thor’s Electric Blue colorway of white and beige with black and blue accents. Exterior details include power slide-out walls, a 360-degree camera system, side steps, a right-side awning, a hitch receiver, and an outdoor shower. Utility equipment is comprised of fresh, gray, and black water tanks along with a tankless water heater, an LP generator, shore-power and LP connectors, and a roof-mounted climate-control system. Steel 16″ wheels with polished covers wear Firestone Transforce HT3 tires reportedly fitted in March 2026. The van is equipped with a solid dually rear axle, an Electronic Stability Program (ESP), and four-wheel disc brakes. Beige upholstery covers the front captain’s chairs, which are accompanied by automatic climate control, Distronic cruise control, crosswind assist, and a Kenwood stereo. The leather-wrapped multifunction steering wheel frames a 120-mph speedometer, a 5k-rpm tachometer, a digital information display, and gauges for coolant temperature and fuel level. The digital odometer indicates 20k miles, approximately 20 of which were added under current ownership. The rear living space is outfitted with an Axxera television, reclining theater seating, a Bluetooth audio system, storage cabinets, privacy blinds, LED lighting, and a two-seat dinette area as well as a kitchenette with a refrigerator, a sink, a two-burner gas cooktop, and a microwave oven. Bathroom features include a shower and a separate lavatory with a toilet and sink. The bedroom is appointed with a flip-up full-size bed, another television, hanging and drawer storage, and an accordion privacy partition. A utility control panel was repaired in preparation for the sale. The 3.0-liter turbodiesel V6 was factory rated at 188 horsepower and 325 lb-ft of torque. The engine oil was most recently changed in March 2026. Power is routed to the rear wheels through a 7G-Tronic Plus seven-speed automatic transmission. The Carfax report is free of accident or damage entries. We need to confirm your billing address in order to appropriately charge fees and taxes should you win an auction. Please provide your billing address below. Congratulations! You're the high bidder. Your bid has been posted in the comment flow on the listing, and you can see other bids there as they happen. Good luck! Please confirm if the following details are aligned with your current contact information. If not, pleaseupdate your profile. Bidding will advance immediately to $. The BaT Service Fee is 5% of the bid, with a minimum of $250 up to a maximum of $7,500.VAT on Service Fee is charged in USD If you win the auction, your card will be charged for the service fee and you pay the seller directly for the vehicle. If you don't win, your existing pre-authorization will be released. When you bid we pre-authorize your credit card for the service fee(this helps prevent fraud). If you win the auction, your card will be charged for the service fee and you pay the seller directly for the vehicle. If you don't win, the pre-authorization will be released. *Exchange Rates You are bidding for this item in USD. This means, if you have the winning bid, you will need to make your payment to the seller in USD. It is your responsibility to check the conversion rate, and you should also note that exchange rates may fluctuate between now and the due date of your payment after the end of the auction. Taxation If you are the highest bidder, you will also need to pay the seller any applicable taxes/VAT. Your bid may not be inclusive of these amounts. Relevant details are included in the listing, so please ensure you have read and understood this information before placing your bid. Note that, if you will need to import the vehicle to your country, you may be responsible for import-related taxes. For more info,read about our auctionsoremail uswith any questions. By clicking on “Place a Bid” below, I acknowledge that theright to cancelservice will not apply once the bid has been placed, as the service will be provided immediately and agree to Bring a Trailer’sTerms of Use. Your bid of $is $more that the current high bid of $. Are you sure you want to proceed?