Illustration of semaglutide activating a key receptor, called GLP-1JUAN GAERTNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/AlamyThe active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, a drug called semaglutide, can have direct beneficial effects on the heart within weeks, in addition to the longer-term benefits of losing weight, an animal study has shown.The finding suggests that people with heart disease who dont have type 2 diabetes or obesity, which semaglutide is primarily used to treat, might also benefit from taking this kind of drug. It may be that were missing a large population of people that could benefit, says Christopher Stone at Brown

A short ferry ride from the port city of Yantai, on the northeast coast of China, sits Genghai No.1, a 12,000-metric-ton ring of oil-rig-style steel platforms, advertised as a hotel and entertainment complex. On arrival, visitors step onto docks and climb up to reach a strange offshore facilityhalf cruise ship, half high-tech laboratory, all laid out around half a mile of floating walkways. Its highest pointthe glistening diamond on Genghai No.1s necklace, according to Chinas state news agencyis a seven-story visitor center, designed to look like a cartoon starfish. Jack Klumpp, a YouTuber from Florida, became one of the first 20,000 tourists to explore Genghais visitor center following its opening in May 2023. In his series Im in China with Jack, Klumpp strolls around a water park cutely decorated in Fisher-Price yellow and turquoise, and indoors, he is excited to spot the hull of Chinas deep-sea submersible Jiaolong. In reality, the sea here is only about 10 meters deep, and the submersible is only a model. Its journey into the oceans depths is an immersive digital experience rather than real adventure, but the floor of the sub rocks and shakes under his feet like a theme park ride. Watching Klumpp lounge in Genghais luxe marine hotel, its hard to understand why anyone would build this tourist attraction on an offshore rig, nearly a mile out in the Bohai Strait. But the answer is at the other end of the walkway from Genghais tourist center, where on a smaller, more workmanlike platform, hes taught how to cast a worm-baited line over the edge and reel in a hefty bream. Genghai is in fact an unusual tourist destination, one that breeds 200,000 high-quality marine fish each year, according to a recent interview in China Daily with Jin Haifeng, deputy general manager of Genghai Technology Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned shipbuilder Shandong Marine Group. Just a handful of them are caught by recreational fishers like Klumpp. The vast majority are released into the ocean as part of a process known as marine ranching. Since 2015, China has built 169 national demonstration ranchesincluding Genghai No. 1and scores of smaller-scale facilities, which collectively have laid 67 million cubic meters of artificial reefs and planted an area the size of Manhattan with seagrass, while releasing at least 167 billion juvenile fish and shellfish into the ocean. The Chinese government sees this work as an urgent and necessary response to the bleak reality that fisheries are collapsing both in China and worldwide, with catches off Chinas coast declining 18% in less than a decade. In the face of that decline, marine ranches could offer an enticing win-win: a way to restore wild marine ecosystems while boosting fishery hauls. Marine ranches could offer an enticing win-win: a way to restore wild marine ecosystems while boosting fishery hauls. But before China invests billions more dollars into these projects, it must show it can get the basics right. Genghai, which translates as Sea Harvest, sits atop what Jin calls an undersea ecological oasis constructed by developers. In the middle of the circular walkway, artificial marine habitats harbor shrimp, seaweed, and fish, including the boggle-eyed Korean rockfish and a fish with a parrot-like beak, known as the spotted knifejaw. The facility is a next-generation showcase for the countrys ambitious plans, which call for 200 pilot projects by 2025. Its a 5G-enabled, AI-equipped ecological ranch that features submarine robots for underwater patrols and intelligent breeding cages that collect environmental data in near-real time to optimize breeding by, for example, feeding fish automatically. In an article published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinas top science institute, one high-ranking fisheries expert sketches out plans for a seductive tech-driven future where production and conservation go hand in hand: Ecological ranches ring the coastline, seagrass meadows and coral reefs regrow around them, and autonomous robots sustainably harvest mature seafood. But now, Chinese researchers say, is the time to take stock of lessons learned from the rapid rollout of ranching to date. Before the country invests billions more dollars into similar projects in the coming years, it must show it can get the basics right. What, exactly, is a marine ranch? Developing nations have historically faced a trade-off between plundering marine resources for development and protecting ecosystems for future generations, says Cao Ling, a professor at Xiamen University in eastern China. When growing countries take more than natural ecosystems can replenish, measures like seasonal fishing bans have been the traditional way to allow fisheries to recover. Marine ranching offers an alternative to restricting fishinga way to really synergize environmental, economic, and social development goals, says Caoby actively increasing the oceans bounty. Its now a hot topic in China, says Cao, who grew up on her familys fish farm before conducting research at the University of Michigan and Stanford. In fact, marine ranching has become such a buzzword that it can be hard to tell what it actually means, encompassing as it does flagship facilities like Genghai No.1 (which merge scientific research with industrial-scale aquaculture pens, recreational fishing amenities, and offshore power) and a baffling array of structures including deep-sea floating wind farms with massive fish-farming cages and 100,000-ton mobile marine rancheseffectively fish-breeding aircraft carriers. There are even whole islands, like the butterfly-shaped Wuzhizhou on Chinas tropical south coast, that have been designated as ranching areas. A scuba diver finishes cleaning the nets surrounding Genghai No. 1, Chinas first AI-powered ecological marine ranch complex.UPI/ALAMY LIVE NEWS To understand what a marine ranch is, its easiest to come back to the practices roots. In the early 1970s, California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska passed laws to allow construction of facilities aimed at repairing stocks of salmon after the rivers where they traditionally bred had been decimated by pollution and hydroelectric dams. The idea was essentially twofold: to breed fish in captivity and to introduce them into safe nurseries in the Pacific. Since 1974, when the first marine ranches in the US were built off the coast of California and Oregon, ranchers have constructed artificial habitats, usually concrete reef structures, that proponents hoped could provide nursery grounds where both valuable commercial stocks and endangered marine species could be restored. Today, fish farming is a $200 billion industry that has had a catastrophic environmental impact, blighting coastal waters with streams of fish feces, pathogens, and parasites. Marine ranching has rarely come close to fulfilling this potential. Eight of the 11 ranches that opened in the US in the 1970s were reportedly shuttered by 1990, their private investors having struggled to turn a profit. Meanwhile, European nations like Norway spent big on attempts to restock commercially valuable species like cod before abandoning the efforts because so few introduced fish survived in the wild. Japan, which has more ranches than any other country, made big profits with scallop ranching. But a long-term analysis of Japans policies estimated that all other schemes involving restocking the ocean were unprofitable. Worse, it found, releasing docile, lab-bred fish into the wild could introduce genetically damaging traits into the original population. Today, marine ranching is often considered a weird offshoot of conventional fish farming, in which fish of a single species are fed intensively in small, enclosed pens. This type of feedlot-style aquaculture has grown massively in the last half-century. Today its a $200 billion industry and has had a catastrophic environmental impact, blighting coastal waters with streams of fish feces, pathogens, and parasites. Yet coastal nations have not been discouraged by the mediocre results of marine ranching. Many governments, especially in East Asia, see releasing millions of young fish as a cheap way for governments to show their support for hard-hit fishing communities, whose livelihoods are vanishing as fisheries teeter on the edge of collapse. At least 20 countries continue to experiment with diverse combinations of restocking and habitat enhancementincluding efforts to transplant coral, reforest mangroves, and sow seagrass meadows. Each year at least 26 billion juvenile fish and shellfish, from 180 species, are deliberately released into the worlds oceansthree for every person on the planet. Taken collectively, these efforts amount to a great, ongoing, and little-noticed experiment on the wild marine biome. Chinas big bet China, with a population of 1.4 billion people, is the worlds undisputed fish superpower, home to the largest fishing fleet and more than half the planets fish farms. The country also overwhelms all others in fish consumption, using as much as the four next-largest consumersthe US, the European Union, Japan, and Indiacombined and then doubled. But decades of overfishing, compounded by runaway pollution from industry and marine aquaculture, have left its coastal fisheries depleted. Around many Chinese coastal cities like Yantai, there is a feeling that things could not be worse, says Yong Chen, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York. In the temperate northern fishing grounds of the Bohai and Yellow Seas, stocks of wild fish such as the large yellow croakera species thats critically endangeredhave collapsed since the 1980s. By the turn of the millennium, the Bohai, a densely inhabited gulf 100 miles east of Beijing, had lost most of its large sea bass and croaker, leaving fishing communities to fish down the food chain. Fishing nets came up 91% lighter than they did in the 1950s, in no small part because heavy industry and this regions petrochemical plants had left the waters too dirty to support healthy fish populations. As a result, over the past three decades China has instituted some of the worlds strictest seasonal fishing bans; recently it has even encouraged fishermen to find other jobs. But fish populations continue to decline, and fishing communities worry for their future. Marine ranching has received a big boost from the highest levels of government; its considered an ideal test case for President Xi Jinpings ecological civilization agenda, a strategy for environmentally sustainable long-term growth. Since 2015, ranching has been enshrined in successive Five-Year Plans, the countrys top-level planning documentsand ranch construction has been backed by an initial investment of 11.9 billion ($1.8 billion). China is now on track to release 30 billion juvenile fish and shellfish annually by 2025. So far, the practice has produced an unlikely poster child: the sea cucumber. A spiky, bottom-dwelling animal that, like Japans scallops, doesnt move far from release sites, it requires little effort for ranchers to recapture. Across northern China, sea cucumbers are immensely valuable. They are, in fact, one of the most expensive dishes on menus in Yantai, where they are served chopped and braised with scallions. Some ranches have experimented with raising multiple species, including profitable fish like sea bass and shellfish like shrimp and scallops, alongside the cucumber, which thrives in the waste that other species produce. In the northern areas of China, such as the Bohai, where the top priority is helping fishing communities recover, a very popular [mix] is sea cucumbers, abalone, and sea urchin, says Tian Tao, chief scientific research officer of the Liaoning Center for Marine Ranching Engineering and Science Research at Dalian Ocean University. Designing wild ecosystems Today, most ranches are geared toward enhancing fishing catches and have done little to deliver on ecological promises. According to Yang Hongsheng, a leading marine scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the mix of species that has so far been introduced has been too simple to produce a stable ecosystem, and ranch builders have paid inadequate attention to that goal. Marine ranch construction is typically funded by grants of around 20 million ($2.8 million) from Chinas government, but ranches are operated by private firms. These companies earn revenue by producing seafood but have increasingly cultivated other revenue streams, like tourism and recreational fishing, which has boomed in recent years. So far, this owner-operator model has provided few incentives to look beyond proven methods that closely resemble aquaculturelike Genghai No.1s enclosed deep-sea fishing cagesand has done little to encourage contributions to ocean health beyond the ranchs footprint. Many of the companies just want to get the money from the government, says Zhongxin Wu, an associate professor at Dalian Ocean University who works with Tian Tao. Making ranches more sustainable and ecologically sound will require a rapid expansion of basic knowledge about poorly studied marine species, says Stony Brooks Yong Chen. For a sea cucumber, the first thing you need to know is its life history, right? How they breed, how they live, how they die, he says. For many key marine species, we have few ideas what temperature or conditions they prefer to breed and grow in. A diver swims off the shore of Wuzhizhou Island, where fish populations multiplied tenfold after artificial reefs were introduced.YANG GUANYU/XINHUA/ALAMY Chinese universities are world leaders in applied sciences, from agricultural research to materials science. But fundamental questions arent always easy to answer in Chinas quite unique research and development environment, says Neil Loneragan, president of the Malaysia-based Asian Fisheries Society and a professor emeritus of marine science at Murdoch University in Australia. The central governments controlling influence on the development of ranching, Loneragan says, means researchers must walk a tightrope between their two bosses: the academic supervisor and the party chief. Marine biologists want to understand the basics, but researchers would have to spin that so that its demonstrating economic returns to industry and, hence, the benefits to the government from investment, he says. Many efforts aim to address known problems in the life cycles of captive-bred fish, such as inadequate breeding rates or the tough survival odds for young fish when they reach the ocean. Studies have shown that fish in these early life stages are particularly vulnerable to environmental fluctuations like storms and recent ocean heat waves. One of the most radical solutions, which Zhongxin Wu is testing, would improve their fitness before theyre released from breeding tanks into the wild. Currently, Wu says, fish are simply scooped up in oxygenated plastic bags and turned loose in ocean nurseries, but there it becomes apparent that many are weak or lacking in survival skills. In response, his team is developing a set of wild training tools. The main method is swimming training, he says. In effect, the juvenile fish are forced to swim against a current, on a sort of aquatic treadmill, to help acclimate them to the demands of the wild. Another technique, he says, involves changing the water temperature and introducing some other species to prepare them for seagrass and kelp forests theyll meet in the world outside. Wu says better methods of habitat enhancement have the greatest potential to increase the effectiveness of marine ranching. Today, most ranches create undersea environments using precast-concrete structures that are installed under 20 meters of water, often with a rough surface to support the growth of coral or algae. The typical Chinese ranch aims for 30,000 cubic meters of artificial reefs; in the conservation-focused ranching area around Wuzhizhou Island, for instance, 1,000 cast-concrete reef structures were dropped around the tropical islands shores. Fish populations have multiplied tenfold in the last decade. This is by far the most expensive part of Chinas ranching program. According to a national evaluation coauthored by Cao Ling, 87% of Chinas first $1 billion investment has gone to construct artificial reefs, with a further 5% spent on seagrass and seaweed restoration. These costs have brought both questions about the effectiveness of the efforts and a drive for innovation. Across China, some initial signs suggest that the enhancements are making a difference: Sites with artificial reefs were found to have a richer mix of commercially important species and higher biomass than adjacent sites. But Tian and Wu are investigating new approaches, including custom 3D-printed structures for endangered fish. On trial are bungalow-size steel ziggurats with wide openings for yellowtail kingfisha large, predatory fish thats prized for sashimiand arcs of barrel-vaulted concrete, about waist height, for sea cucumbers. In recent years, structures have been specifically designed in the shape of pyramids, to divert ocean currents into oceanic upwellings. Nutrients that typically settle on the seafloor are instead ejected back up toward the surface. That attracts prey for high-level predators, says Loneragan, including giant tuna-like species that fetch high prices at restaurants. Has China found a workable model? So will China soon be relying onmarine ranches to restock the seas? We still dont have anywhere near enough data to say. The Qingdao Marine Conservation Society, an environmental NGO, is one of the few independent organizations systematically assessing ranches track records and has, says founder Songlin Wang, failed to find sufficient independent and science-based research results that can measurably verify most marine ranches expected or claimed environmental and social benefits. One answer to the data shortfall might be the kind of new tech on display at Genghai No. 1, where robotic patrols and subsea sensors feed immediately into a massive dashboard measuring water quality, changes in the ocean environment, and fish behavior. After decades as a fairly low-tech enterprise, ranching in China has been adopting such new technologies since the beginning of the latest Five-Year Plan in 2021. The innovations promise to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and make ranches more resilient to climate fluctuations and natural disasters, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. But Yong Chen, whose lab at Stony Brook partners with Chinese researchers, is skeptical that researchers are gathering and sharing the right data. The problem is, yes, theres this visualization. So what? he says. [Marine ranching companies] are willing to invest money into this kind of infrastructure, create that kind of big screen, and people will walk in and say Wow, look at that! he adds. Yeah, its beautiful. It definitely will impress the leadership. Important people will give you money for that. But as a scientist, my question to you is: How can it help you inform your decision-making process next year? Will China soon be relying on marine ranches to restock the seas? We still dont have anywhere near enough data to say. Data sharing is really difficult in China, says Cao Ling. Most data produced by private companies remains in their servers. But Cao and Chen say that governmentslocal or centralcould facilitate more open data sharing in the interest of guiding ranch design and policy. But Chinas central government is convinced by what it has seen and plans to scale up investment. Tian, who leads the government committee on marine ranching, says he has recently learned that the next Ten-Year Plan will aim to increase the number of pilot ranches from 200 to 350 by 2035. Each one is expected to be backed by 200 million ($28 million)10 times the typical current investment. Specific policies are due to be announced next year, but he expects that ranches will no longer be funded as standalone facilities. Instead, grants will likely be given to cities like Dalian and Yantai, which can plan across land and sea and find ways to link commercial fishing with power generation and tourism while cutting pollution from industry. Tian has an illustration that aims to visualize the coming tech-driven ecological ranching system, a sort of marine ranching 3.0: a sea cove monitored by satellites and restored to such good health that orcas have returned to its fish-filled waters. Its a near-utopian image seemingly ripped from a 1960s issue of Popular Science. Theres even stranger research that aims to see if red sea bream like the one Jack Klumpp caught can be conditioned like Pavlovs dogsin this case to flock to the sound of a horn, so the oceans harvest would literally swim into nets at the press of a button. So far Chinas marine ranching program remains far from any of this, despite the isolated signs of success. But ultimately what matters most is to find a balance point between commerce and sustainability, says Cao. Take Genghai No. 1: Its very pretty! she says with a laugh. And it costs a lot for the initial investment. If such ranches are going to contribute to Chinas coming ecological civilization, theyll have to prove they are delivering real gains and not just sinking more resources into a dying ocean. Matthew Ponsford is a freelance reporter based in London.

The US military has warned that lifesaving "golden hour" care may not exist in future wars.The experiences of Ukrainian soldiers reflect those warnings.Getting treatment can take hours, if not days, leading to lasting injuries, amputations, and deaths.American generals predicted years ago that the intensity of future wars could upend lifesaving evacuations and medical care for injured troops.That prediction is now a reality in Ukraine, where soldiers often can't get proper medical care within the "golden hour" the critical first 60 minutes after severe injuries when treatment can increase chances of survival."Until there's a real concrete answer for drones, it's going to continue to be pretty hectic when it comes to that type of care," a combat medic with a foreign volunteer unit in Ukraine told Business Insider.The medic, who uses the call sign Tango, has front-line experience with Chosen Company, including an ill-fated fight in the village of Pervomaiske. His team was devastated by Russian indirect fire in July 2023. He said that despite his own injuries he helped provide first aid to a handful of wounded men but that they had to wait hours for more extensive care. Two men didn't survive.In Ukraine, swarms of drones and constant artillery strikes complicate timely evacuations, contributing to the war's soaring death toll and the severity of survivors' injuries. Ukrainian soldiers taking part in medical training on the front line in Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. Ignacio Marin/Anadolu via Getty Images Asked in 2019 by Congress whether the US military would be able to evacuate wounded troops during the golden hour in future conflicts, Gen. Mark Milley, then the Army's chief of staff and later the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a grim response."Probably not," he said."We'll try," he added, "but I'm not guaranteeing."Other military leaders have expressed similar concerns. "You may have previously heard a discussion of the 'golden hour,'" Maj. Gen. Anthony McQueen, now the Army's deputy surgeon general but formerly the head of its Medical Research and Development Command, said last year. "We're moving more to a 'golden window of opportunity.'"On any given day in Ukraine, wounded soldiers may be stuck near the front lines for hours or days and can be evacuated only during a break in the fighting or in the dim light of dawn and dusk."Here in Ukraine," a US Army veteran fighting in Ukraine who goes by the call sign Jackie told BI, "we have a golden three days."A struggle to evacuateA different Ukrainian combat medic told BI the struggle to quickly evacuate was "a big problem" that had only worsened with drones becoming more prolific. "Two years ago," she said, "it was a totally different war from what is going on now." The Ukrainian military operating a Punisher drone. Libkos via Getty Images An estimated 1 million people have been killed or injured in the Ukraine war, with casualties stemming heavily from drones and artillery.Cheap drones swarming the skies over Ukraine's battlefields can severely delay medical evacuations. The drones serve as aerial eyes for artillery, bombers that can drop grenades, and precision-strike munitions.The second medic said Russian troops target vehicles known to be carrying out evacuations. They aim for the combat medics, she said, because "if you kill a medic, it means that you killed thousands of soldiers," or all the people they might have saved otherwise."If you look special or different, you are going to attract a drone," Tango said. "That goes especially for evac, and they specifically target medical vehicles or anybody with a backpack. You never wear a medic patch on the front line. That's a guaranteed drone strike."Drones are only one of the war's many causes of bodily harm and death. A 2023 medical study found that 70% of Ukrainian war injuries were caused by shelling or rocket fire. Graves at the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, of Ukrainian soldiers killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. AP Photo/Mykola Tys The second medic said first responders sometimes reach injured soldiers quickly but can't evacuate if nearby roads are controlled by Russians or exposed to drones.That can mean waiting hours or even days.Extended delays in crucial care could lead to complications, such as amputations, or even fatalities that faster clinical care might have avoided. Leaving a tourniquet on too long, for example, can cause lasting nerve damage.Jackie said a friend of his was wounded by shrapnel but couldn't leave his trench near the eastern city of Bakhmut for four days. His wounded leg became infected and ultimately had to be cut off.Jackie thought the injury would have been an "easy fix" if the friend had received care in the golden hour. "We don't have a field medic up there pushing antibiotics through IVs, right under direct fire in a trench," he said.Separately, a UkrainianDrones give rise to 'magic hour' evacuationsIn the cult-classic sci-fi film "Reign of Fire," "magic hour" occurs at dusk and dawn; it's the time of day when the dragons, deadly airborne dangers, are vulnerable. Tango said medics operating in Ukraine could find a similar respite at those times."That's when they're switching out their surveillance drones from normal analog video to either thermal or night vision," he said. "You have that limited window to move people."Tango said, "You can't move during the daytime, or you'll get wrecked by drones." And the night has its own terrors.Fighting typically slows at dawn and dusk as soldiers rest and swap equipment between daytime and nighttime gear, though the Russians sometimes use artillery to suppress the Ukrainians during this period. A soldier hit outside this time typically must wait hours for an evacuation.Once they can be moved, injured soldiers are typically taken back to a casualty collection point, like an underground bunker or concealed position, to be stabilized until it is safe for a truck or armored vehicle to take them to a field hospital.What it means for the West Ukrainian troops near Bakhmut. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky Drones have been used more in the war in Ukraine than in any other conflict in history, limiting battlefield movement. And the proliferation of sophisticated air defenses has prevented either side Ukraine or Russia from achieving air supremacy or even superiority. That makes it too risky for helicopters to rapidly pick up the wounded, as was standard in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Recalling his Iraq deployment a decade ago, Tango said, "I knew even if I got really messed up, there is a pretty good chance I'm going to survive." He said that he "could get wrecked and probably be at a hospital within an hour or two."In Ukraine, he said, "it's a gamble every time you step off on a mission."The US could face similar obstacles in the event of a large-scale conflict against an adversary like China or Russia. Military medics giving first aid to a wounded Ukrainian soldier at a medical stabilization point near Chasiv Yar in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Oleg Petrasiuk/Ukraine's 24th Mechanised Brigade via AP US Army Col. Matthew Fandre, then the senior medical officer for the Mission Command Training Program, wrote in 2020 that in a future large-scale war involving the US, the "golden hour will become a goal, not an expectation.""This is not a paradigm shift; instead, it would be a return to the patterns and expectations of World War II operations and Cold War planning, exacerbated by current technology and lethality," Fandre wrote.He said that without air superiority, aerial evacuations could become limited, leaving ground evacuations as the primary method. But ground evacuations would most likely also have limits, he wrote, which could "dramatically increase died-of-wounds rates."George Barros, a conflict analyst at the US-based Institute for the Study of War, told BI that America and its allies needed a "tremendous amount of learning" to help "prepare to deter and, if necessary, defeat modern state peer adversaries like China and Russia." But there are also lessons from US experiences for Ukraine. A Russian soldier firing a howitzer toward Ukrainian positions. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP The US special-operations community has experience in prolonged battlefield combat care, something medics like Tango are increasingly studying and applying in Ukraine. Expanding that to the military on a large scale could be challenging, though. Troops are also considering drone deliveries of supplies into contested battlespaces, but that capability is still in the early stages.Until then, many soldiers will continue to fight the clock after injuries, hoping for breaks in the fighting that make lifesaving treatments more accessible.

Alcohol was part of my life. My wake-up call was after I crashed my car while driving under the influence. I realized I can't fail my son, and now I'm working to regain his trust. For most of my adult life, alcohol was my crutch, my comfort, and eventually, my undoing. It seeped into every corner of my life relationships, work, and my sense of self. But nothing exposed the cost of my addiction to the same extent as looking at my 4-year-old son and knowing I was failing him.My decisive wake-up call came months ago. After a period of sobriety, I relapsed. On a weekday night after work, I hit the bottle, and before I knew it, I was behind the wheel, drunk and reckless. I crashed my car that night. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the fallout hit me like a tidal wave. In the hospital afterward, I wasn't thinking about the damage to my car or the legal consequences all I could think about was my son Neil.I didn't want to be the dad I was I remember coming to the painful conclusion about the kind of father I had become. The kind who missed bedtime stories because he was desperate for a drink. The kind who made promises to take his son on trips and just as quickly broke those promises when the urge to drink took over. The kind who might not be around to see his child grow up if he kept going down this road.The morning after the crash, I admitted to myself that I couldn't keep living like this. I embarked, once again, on my recovery journey. But this time, my intent was absolute. I'm seven months sober. But sobriety is just one part of my journey. The more emotional work has been rebuilding my relationship with my son and earning back the trust that I broke.Children even at the tender age of 4, as my son is have a better sense of the world around them than we understand. My son might not have known I was drinking, but I know he felt the distance. He noticed when I wasn't paying attention to him and when I overreacted to small things because I was nursing a hangover.I can't forgive myself for what I didThe shame and guilt of knowing how my choices shaped Neil's early years is something I carry with me every day. Those first few years of his life should have been about joy, security, and connection. Instead, my addiction robbed us of moments we'll never get back. And as hard I try, and as much as I understand the importance of doing so, I'll never forgive myself for that.This time, in recovery, I was determined to make up for lost time. I intended to dive into parenting with everything I had. I wanted to be the dad who shows up when he says he will, takes his son to the park, and never misses bedtime. And I have been doing those things. But, as I failed to realize, trust takes time.One of the most challenging parts of recovery, undoubtedly, has been accepting that my son needs time to trust me again. When I pick him up from nursery, I see now and then the hesitation in his eyes, a sense of doubt I put there.I'm focused on rebuilding trustAt first, that reaction devastated me. But, over time, I've learned to see it as part of the process. Rebuilding trust isn't about grand gestures; it's about showing up consistently, day after day. It's about reading the bedtime story even when I'm tired or sitting on the floor to build a Lego tower when my mind is racing with recovery challenges.I've also as part of my recovery been having difficult conversations with Neil. At 4, my son is too young to comprehend addiction, but I've started explaining it in simple terms. I tell him, "Daddy used to make bad choices, but now I'm working hard to make better ones." I want him to see that it's OK to admit when you've messed up as long as you're willing to do the work to make things right.Parenting while in recovery is a balancing act. It's about managing my healing while staying present for my son. It's about showing him, through my actions, that people can change and that mistakes don't have to define you.For the first time in his life and mine I'm showing up as my true self. And for me, that's the greatest victory of all.

I had enough airline miles for two round-trip first-class tickets from Los Angeles to Orlando.We enjoyed the experiences and our time together and reconnected as a couple.There would be no penny-pinching on this trip, unlike our first as parents. Being from Southern California, many would ask why I'd want to spend the money to go to Walt Disney World in Florida when I had Disneyland in my backyard. I would say that if you ask that question, you've never been there. It is a magical world unto itself. Our first trip was in 1987, and my wife and I made annual trips until 1993 when we found out we were going to be parents.Anyone with kids knows that life changes. We waited until our son was old enough and returned as a family in 1998. It was even more magical with children. By the time he was 8, we gave him a walkie-talkie and let him run around the hotel as long as he checked in with us. At the time, I never thought that one day, we would return without children.My son didn't want to go when he was a teenagerLife is all about change, especially with kids. The next two decades saw many family trips to the magical world in Florida. When the economy changed in 2007, we switched to driving across the Western US with our camping trailer, but always as a family. Being a dad wasn't just something I did; it was who I was.But life changes; children don't stay children forever. As a teen, it was no longer cool for my son to go on trips with Mom and Dad. Then, the inevitable happened: high school graduation, college, and the Army. We had officially become empty-nesters.By 2017, our financial situation had improved, and I was once again working as an executive. I felt secure and decided it was time to reward ourselves. It would be our first trip to Disney World without kids in decades, and it felt weird. We had originally planned for September, but Hurricane Irma had other plans. We rescheduled for February of 2018. We'd never gone in Spring; we'd always gone in August to close out the summer before school started.We hit all the parks when we went by ourselvesI worked late the night before answering final emails. Then I clicked "save" on my out-of-office message. I was officially on vacation. I had years of airline miles accumulated and had enough for two first-class round-trip tickets. We headed first to Universal Studios and a two-night stay at the Royal Pacific Resort Hotel. We did all the parks and all the Harry Potter attractions. We even got a Butter Beer. But we'd come to Florida for another reason.On our third day, we drove to Disney's Wilderness Lodge. We've stayed at a half dozen resorts on the property over the years, but this is our favorite. The architecture is reminiscent of the great national park lodges. A pine forest surrounds it and overlooks Bay Lake. There is even a geyser (artificial) that erupts regularly. Our room overlooked the lake, pool, and geyser. Every nigh,t we watched the Bay Lake Electrical Water Pageant from our balcony.The trip brought back so many memoriesBeing at Disney World just as a couple brought back a lot of memories. We were a little older, but it was as if no time had passed at all since that first trip as a young couple all those years ago, except that I had less hair. One of my favorite photos of all time is from this trip. It's a selfie of us at the Universal Hotel, me in my Disney polo shirt, her auburn hair gently resting on her bare shoulders.Holding hands, we walked to the Magic Kingdom. For the next six days, we hopped from one park to the next. Exploring all the changes to the resort since our last trip. Enjoying all the rides, shows, attractions, and dining experiences. EPCOT was having its International Flower & Garden Festival. The park was filled with beautiful floral displays and unique food carts in every land. We rented bikes at the Fort Wilderness Campground and had a picnic lunch by the lake. Walked around Disney Springs and toured the hotels and the campground.It was a perfect trip, but the one thing that I would do differently next time is not have a rental car. Though the Alamo rental was only $331 for the eight days, it was another $25 per day for parking at the hotel. And the traffic was so bad on the resort that we ended up just using the resort transit. The hotel cost for 8 days was $3,697. We also spent another $2,080 on taxes, dining, and souvenirs on our Disney gift card from our Chase Disney Rewards Visa.Though I did have to take a couple of work calls and was "allowed" one hour per day to catch up on emails, it was one of the first vacations in a long time where I felt relaxed and refreshed. We didn't have an itinerary, no schedule to keep. We enjoyed the experiences and our time together and reconnected as a couple.

The spike in crime rates prompted by the pandemic in 2020 cemented the backlash to progressive criminal justice reform. In the years that followed, lawmakers from both major parties passed laws that rolled back changes to the criminal justice system that had aimed to lower penalties and reduce the prison population. And in 2024, tough-on-crime laws, it seems, made a decisive comeback.Over the past year, New York sent the National Guard to patrol the New York City subways, Louisiana passed a law to try 17-year-olds as adults, and Oregon recriminalized drugs it had decriminalized not so long ago. It also wasnt just lawmakers who were eager to make these changes. In March, San Francisco voters approved ballot measures that expanded police surveillance and imposed drug tests on welfare recipients, and in November, California voters passed a ballot measure to toughen penalties for drug- and theft-related crimes, while Colorado voters chose to reduce parole eligibility for people convicted of violent crimes.The souring mood on the breakthroughs won by progressive criminal justice advocates in the years leading up to the pandemic has clearly taken hold. And thats in spite of the fact that, on average, crime rates have actually been falling since 2021.This backlash will likely continue in the coming year, given Donald Trumps return to the White House and his campaign promises of enacting harsher law enforcement, including by expanding the federal death penalty.So what does the road ahead look like for criminal justice reform advocates?Understanding the backlashIn many ways, lawmakers are responding to the publics sentiments about crime. But as Ive written several times over the past year, the way people feel about crime doesnt always reflect what crime trends actually look like. In fact, it almost never does. Over the last two decades, polls consistently showed that the majority of Americans believed crime was getting worse, even though during that same timespan, crime rates typically fell year over year. But that doesnt mean that people are entirely misguided and that crime isnt an issue that lawmakers should take seriously. After all, the United States is a more violent country than its peers, and lawmakers have to address that fact. Its also the case that after an actual rise in crime particularly violent crimes like murder, rape, and assault as was the case in 2020, people are understandably worried and might be slow to digest the good news. Where lawmakers go wrong, however, is how they respond to public sentiments. Its very difficult to pinpoint the cause of a crime wave or figure out how to reduce crime in the short term. Responding by reflexively passing tough-on-crime measures might alleviate peoples fears, but doesnt necessarily solve the problem. In fact, as politicians try to outcompete each other over who or which party is tougher on crime, they contribute to a vicious feedback loop that only reinforces the notion that crime is getting out of control. Law-and-order campaigns, for example, exaggerate and often lie about crime trends. And so instead of reassuring the public that things are getting better, lawmakers have only been adding fuel to the fire.What this means for 2025 and beyondMajor policy changes constantly go through a push and pull, and criminal justice reform is no different. The tough-on-crime laws that were adopted across the country in the 1990s imposed overly harsh penalties, including long sentences that contributed to a growing incarcerated population. But as the prison population reached its peak in the late 2000s, public attitudes about the criminal justice system changed, and many reforms including lowering sentences, eliminating cash bail, and expanding parole passed and resulted in reducing the number of people in prisons in the United States.Now, as the reforms reverse, were already seeing the prison population rise again after over a decade of slow but steady decline. Given the persistence of the backlash, and how widespread it seems to be, with voters themselves passing tougher crime laws, criminal justice reform advocates will face an uphill battle in the coming years.Yet while public attitudes around criminal justice reform have clearly changed, some of the lessons of the criminal justice reform movement have stuck around. Americans, for example, support decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana something that at least five more states did in 2023, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. There are also signs that efforts to pass more forgiving sentencing laws can still succeed. Just this year, for example, Massachusetts became the first state to ban life without parole for people under the age of 21. That followed other states, including Illinois, Minnesota, and New Mexico, that abolished that sentence for people under 18 in 2023.And while Trump is likely to roll back some of the progress made at the federal level, theres reason to believe that criminal justice reform advocates might eventually see friendlier territory in Democratic states where governors will want to draw sharp contrasts with the incoming president, potentially opening the window for more progressive reforms.So while 2024 may have been the year of the tough-on-crime comeback, its still too soon to say that the backlash to criminal justice reform is here to stay.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. 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Making predictions is a tricky business, and here at Future Perfect, we dont pretend to have a crystal ball. But we do think theres real epistemic value in putting our forecasts out there and just as importantly owning up to how they turned out. (Something that happens too rarely in the media, as we learned after Novembers election.) Looking back at our predictions for 2024, we had a wild ride trying to anticipate a year that threw more than a few curveballs our way.For 2024, we made 24 predictions in total, covering everything from who would win the White House to whether Elon Musk could actually get those Cybertrucks on the road. When the dust settled, we got 14 right and 10 wrong batting .583. Thats Shohei Ohtani on a hot streak, though down somewhat from our 2023 results. But I did say it was a topsy-turvy year.Some calls were right on the money, though. We correctly saw Trumps comeback and the GOP taking back the Senate. We nailed it when we said Oppenheimer would grab Best Picture (I mean, who didnt love watching Cillian Murphy brood for three hours?). And we were spot-on about some big international news, like Claudia Sheinbaum making history as Mexicos first woman president and Modi keeping his grip on power in India.But hey, nobodys perfect. We thought the FDA would greenlight MDMA therapy for PTSD that was a swing and a miss. We seriously underestimated how many Cybertrucks Tesla would crank out. And while we got some tech predictions right (looking at you, Waymo and SpaceX), we whiffed on predicting OpenAIs moves.The whole point isnt just to keep score its about getting better at this prediction thing through practice and learning from our mistakes. And in a world that seems to get more unpredictable by the day, we think thats a pretty useful skill to develop. Bryan WalshThe United StatesDonald Trump will return to the White House (55 percent) RIGHTI like to imagine that at least one incredibly sheltered person is learning this fact from this article: Donald Trump was elected to a second nonconsecutive term as president. There wasnt much courage or confidence in this prediction, which I put at only 55 percent odds.My basic approach was to try to use a political science model incorporating national polling, and I came up with a prediction of a narrow Trump victory. President Joe Biden was fairly unpopular, and Trump was narrowly leading him in polling. I wasnt confident that advantage would persist but it did.I will say that if I had updated my prediction throughout the year, it would have changed a lot. I remember in June, before the disastrous Biden-Trump debate, telling friends I gave Trump a 75 percent chance to win; after the debate, I bumped it up to around 90 percent. When Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden and surged in polling compared to her predecessor, I reverted to something like 50-50 odds. The actual race and its contours were changing dramatically, and my sense of the race changed dramatically too. Almost by coincidence, the ultimate election wound up being the narrow contest that polling wouldve predicted at the end of 2023. Dylan MatthewsRepublicans will recapture the Senate (85 percent) RIGHTI think my past self explained the reasoning here well: There are many, many ways for Republicans to retake the Senate. Everything has to go right simultaneously for Democrats to keep it. Everything did not go right simultaneously for Democrats this election. They had already lost a seat forever when Joe Manchin decided to retire in West Virginia, a place where no other Democrat-caucusing candidate could ever win, which left them with a 50-seat maximum in 2024.Then they lost Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Jon Tester in Montana, red states that were going to be tough for Democrats to hang on to in a presidential election year. Then, in something of a shock, Pennsylvanias Bob Casey was defeated by a private equity multimillionaire who doesnt really live in the state and cant tell the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers apart. When that guy wins, you know Democrats are having a bad year.On the plus side, it couldve been much, much worse for Democrats. Despite Harris losing Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego won the Senate race there narrowly. Tammy Baldwin barely hung on in Wisconsin, and Elissa Slotkin won an open seat in Michigan by 0.3 percentage points, even as those two states went for Trump. If the Senate results had followed the presidential map, Republicans would have a 56-seat majority and no trouble confirming anyone Trump wants in his Cabinet. Instead, they ended up with 53 seats, which might be just small enough to cause Trump actual trouble. DMRepublican US Senate candidate Dave McCormick and wife Dina Powell thank supporters after declaring victory in a closely contested race with incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) on November 6, 2024, in Pittsburgh. Jeff Swensen/Getty ImagesDemocrats will recapture the House (55 percent) WRONGMy reasoning here was that Republicans held a very small majority in the House going into the election, and Democrats seemed likely to pick up a number of seats in New York in particular due to redistricting. Sure enough, the party picked up three seats in New York, but lost others to pick up only one seat on net not enough to flip the chamber.In my defense, I was clear this might happen, writing, Theres still an easy-to-imagine world where Republicans hold the House, especially if Trump wins the presidential race and if he pulls out a popular vote victory this time. As it happens, that is the world we live in. But with 220 Republicans in the House and 218 needed to pass anything, there might not be much that Trump can do with this majority. DMInflation will come in under 3 points (65 percent) RIGHTI have not always had the best track record when it comes to inflation predictions, but this one worked out. It was clear in 2023 that inflation had started to decline rapidly in the wake of the Feds interest rate hikes, and that decline continued through 2024, enough so that the Fed was able to start cutting again.By the Feds preferred measure the personal consumption expenditures price index, minus food and energy prices grew by 2.8 percent from October 2023 through October 2024. Thats an annual rate below 3 points, though not by a whole lot. The Feds goal is to get the number down to 2 percent. I find it hard to see prices stabilizing that much, especially if tariffs from the Trump administration cause consumer prices to spike in a one-off event. But were clearly doing better than a few years ago. DM2023 US car crash deaths will again exceed 40,000 (60 percent) RIGHTI like to make this prediction mainly to draw our readers attention to the scandalous number of Americans killed by our transportation system. In 2023, according to statistics released this year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that number dropped by about 3.6 percent from 2022, to a still-abysmal 40,990, a figure that remains significantly elevated after a Covid-era spike erased more than a decade of progress in reducing car crash deaths. How many is that, exactly? Its about as many Americans as are killed by guns and more than double the number killed in homicides overall, though its far fewer than the numbers of Americans who die from diseases like heart disease and cancer. Its twice the number of people killed by cars in the European Union, even though the EU has 100 million more people. And the federal car fatality statistics are actually around 10 percent lower than the true number of Americans killed by cars because they exclude some cases, including crashes on private roads and parking lots. If todays rates remained steady, a rough estimate would suggest that about 1 percent of all Americans would be killed by cars a stunningly high cost of admission into our car-dependent society. Marina BolotnikovaThe worldNetanyahu will be unseated as Israeli prime minister (75 percent) WRONG I almost always predict that Netanyahu will stay in power, but I made an exception when writing last years predictions because the Israeli public was so incredibly furious at him after Hamass October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Polls were showing that voters wanted him out by a wide margin. I figured if ever there was a time when he could be pushed out, this was it. But even this wasnt enough. Israel has a parliamentary system, where governments typically form on the basis of coalitions. Netanyahu is really, really good at pacifying his allies in the governing coalition and they have kept him in power. Sigal SamuelThe world will be hotter in 2024 than it was in 2023 (80 percent) RIGHTClimate change is very obviously making its effects felt. This summer was the hottest on record globally. By November, scientists said this year is virtually certain to break 2023s record. They also noted that 2024 marks the first year that Earth is more than 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than in the pre-industrial period. Sadly, this prediction was a pretty solid bet: You can make it every year and youll get it right about 80 percent of the time. As my colleague Kelsey Piper has noted, This is based on looking at the last 25 years of atmospheric temperature data: On average, in four out of five years, this prediction would be right. SSNarendra Modi will remain as prime minister of India after the countrys 2024 elections (85 percent) RIGHTModi secured a third straight term as Indias prime minister after this springs massive elections, which saw over 640 million voters turn out. Its an achievement equaled only by Indias founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and one that was about as easy to predict as any outcome in this record-breaking year of global elections. Modi rolled into the elections with an approval rating in the mid-70s, or roughly twice as high as Bidens popularity around the same time. In a year when incumbent leaders around the world fell in election after election, Modi and his BJP party were a sure thing so much so that my only regret was not choosing a probability of 99 percent.Even so, this election did not turn out the way many prognosticators expected, myself included. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance secured a majority in Parliament with 293 seats, but that was well short of the 400 seats the alliance was shooting for. And the BJP itself only won 240 seats, a significant drop from the 303 seats it had won in the previous election. As a result, the party lost its solo majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time in 10 years.As my colleague Josh Keating wrote, the results were bad for Modi but good for India as a whole, showing that the worlds biggest democracy remains a democracy. An overwhelming victory would have fed into Modis growing authoritarian inclinations, which were on display this year as the Indian government attacked critics at home and abroad including in the US. India was a rare example in 2024 of the people successfully pushing back against a would-be autocrat. BWClaudia Sheinbaum will become Mexicos first female president (90 percent) RIGHTThere was no courage in the prediction that the massively popular, but term-limited, left-wing President Andrs Manuel Lopz Obrador (AMLO) would be succeeded by his protge, Claudia Sheinbaum, a past mayor of Mexico City and climate scientist. The polling, even that early on, showed Sheinbaum with a massive lead over challenger Xchitl Glvez, an indication of both Sheinbaums talent and the popularity of AMLO and his Morena party.Sheinbaums election was historic: She is not only the first woman elected president of Mexico, but the first Jewish person and (to the best of my knowledge) the first scientist. Climate advocates shouldnt be too sanguine, though. Despite her professional background, Sheinbaum has no interest in shrinking the popular state-owned petroleum sector. DMMexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Stephania Corpi/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesUkraine will not break the land bridge between Donbas and Crimea (70 percent) RIGHTAfter the chaos of 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and 2023, when Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group of mercenaries mutinied and nearly took Moscow, 2024 was a less momentous year in the war. There were major shifts, to be sure: Ukraine seized part of the Kursk region in Russia, giving it Russian land it might be able to trade for Ukrainian territory now under Russian occupation, and North Korea sent troops to the front line, signaling both that Russia has serious allies in the war and that its desperate enough to call upon them.But there were no major battlefield breakthroughs, and one of the biggest goals of the Ukrainian military (splitting Russian troops on the Crimean peninsula from troops in the Donbas, the east of Ukraine) did not come to pass. Here is the map of military control I used in last years predictions:Esri/USGSThis is what the map looks like today:Esri/USGSIf you look carefully, you can see some modest differences between the maps. But overall, theyre nearly identical. The lines of control havent moved much in the past year, and with Trump ascending to office and seemingly hostile to extending aid to the Ukrainian military, the future is looking rather grim for Ukrainians defending their sovereignty. DMScience and technologyThe FDA will approve MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD (85 percent) WRONGI dont feel too bummed about having erred in my prediction here because the FDAs rejection came as a surprise to almost everyone involved. When I made this prediction a year ago, patients, therapists, and policymakers alike were anticipating that Lykos Therapeutics, the company trying to get MDMA-assisted therapy approved, would be successful. After all, Lykos had collaborated with the FDA on the trial design, and the latter had signed off on the methodology. But in March, a report raised fresh concerns about the trial design and unreported adverse events. In May and June, more researchers and advocates started to sound the alarm not just about the psychedelic part of psychedelic-assisted therapy but about the therapy part. Some went so far as to accuse Lykos of being a therapy cult, one with a style that could increase risk to patients. Ultimately, the FDA responded to this new information by deciding not to approve Lykoss application. SSOpenAI will release ChatGPT-5 by the end of November 2024 (75 percent) WRONGDid OpenAI release a whole lot of stuff in 2024? It sure did so much so that the company decided to rebrand 12 days during the holiday season this December as Shipmas, releasing everything from ChatGPT Pro (a $200/month plan that includes unlimited access to its top model OpenAI o1) to its video creation model Sora to something called Santa mode. The blizzard of product shipping one matched by competitors like Google and Meta is a sign of what my colleague Kelsey Piper identified as a shift in AI, away from a single-minded focus on advancing technical progress and toward creating products that people will actually be able to use (and even more importantly, given how expensive frontier AI work is, actually buy). It came as concerns were growing over whether AI was hitting a scaling wall and AI companies were hitting peak data.But as I wrote last year, for the purposes of this prediction, OpenAI will need to release a product called ChatGPT-5 no ChatGPT-4.5 Turbo or whatever. Whether because it was running out of data or because it didnt want to lock itself into ever-escalating model versions, OpenAI did not. Ill take the L. BW Starship will complete a launch without either stage exploding (65 percent) RIGHT2024 was a banner year for SpaceXs Starship, which saw four test launches. The first in March is a difficult case for my prediction: While the launch itself was successful, the booster stage burned up while hurtling back to the ocean and the ship itself appears to have disintegrated at some point. I predicted that neither stage would explode, and its hard to know if either did in this test. They certainly didnt operate the way SpaceX had hoped.Luckily for the company, and for my prediction, its three subsequent launches were all smashing successes. In its June 6 launch, the booster and second stage splashed down, intact, in the Gulf of Mexico and Indian Ocean respectively. The November 19 launch, viewed in person by SpaceX founder Elon Musks political ally Donald Trump, got the same results. But the one for the history books came on October 13, when the booster stage returned not to the Gulf of Mexico but to the very same launchpad in Texas from whence it came, where it was caught by two massive mechanical chopsticks.Whatever else you think about Musk and I think a lot of negative things that was a fairly awe-inspiring achievement, and easily met my prediction that the Starship project would notch major successes this year. DMFewer than 1,000 Cybertrucks will be delivered to customers (60 percent) WRONGI biffed this one pretty bad. For quarters one through three of 2024, Cybertruck sales totaled 28,250 in the US. Anecdotally, they seem to be everywhere in Washington, DC.My rationale was that the extremely unusual design of the truck, complete with a metal rather than painted exterior and a truly massive windshield, would prove challenging to produce at scale. Moreover, Tesla tends to operate with extreme delays, which made me pessimistic that it would meet its timelines for the vehicle.Ultimately, though, its a company with a lot of experience building EVs at scale, and the Cybertruck proved to be no exception. I did predict, however, that the nearly 4-foot monowiper used on the windshield would break down immediately in inclement weather. Guess what? Tesla had to launch a recall in June over exactly this. DMA Tesla Cybertruck. Anadolu via Getty ImagesWaymo will expand to a new city (80 percent) RIGHTThe industry leader on self-driving cars, a sister company to Google, entered the year operating in San Francisco and Phoenix but had announced plans to expand to Los Angeles and Austin. The latter city has seen testing among Waymos own employees but is not yet available to the general public through either the Waymo One app or Uber (which has partnered with Waymo in Phoenix).In Los Angeles, however, driverless taxi rides are now widely available: In March, Waymo started letting Angelenos off its waitlist so they could hail rides, and as of November 12, anyone in LA County can use the service, without any waitlist. That fits my prediction that at least one city would see driverless rides become widely accessible the way they already were in SF and Phoenix. DMAnimal welfareAntibiotics sales for farmed animals will increase at least 1 percent in 2023 (65 percent) WRONGMost antibiotics sold in the US dont go to hospitals or pharmacies, but to farms. These antibiotics are used to make animals grow faster and keep them alive in overcrowded, unsanitary factory farms, and theyve given rise to new antibiotic-resistant superbugs. When humans fall ill from these superbugs, the typical course of antibiotics may not do the trick to heal them. Former Future Perfect fellow Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg called the growth in antibiotic resistance a hidden epidemic. Tracking the amount of antibiotics sold to meat producers is a good proxy for understanding whether were backsliding or making progress on this epidemic, and last year, I predicted antibiotic sales for livestock would have increased by 1 percent in 2023. Instead, they went down by 2 percent. It makes sense that they declined because beef production decreased by almost 5 percent, and cattle account for around 40 percent of livestock antibiotic sales, while pork production remained stable. (I predicted 2023 sales because data is delayed by about a year.)I more or less knew this would happen, as the US Department of Agriculture predicted decreased beef production, and theyre usually right about these things. Nevertheless, I ignored common sense and predicted livestock antibiotic sales would increase because they had been on the rise for the previous five years. Its a mistake to assume that trend lines will always continue, and a lesson Ill incorporate into future predictions. Kenny TorrellaOatlys stock price will not exceed $5 in 2023 (60 percent) RIGHTSadly, I was right on this one. Oatlys stock has remained below $1.40 all year, hitting a low of just 61 cents in mid-November (it peaked at nearly $29 per share in the summer of 2021). Its been a long fall from grace for the company that single-handedly made oat milk cool, moving it from the fringes of the dairy aisle to seemingly every coffee shop menu in America. As I wrote about last year, the company has been beset by manufacturing problems and an onslaught of imitators. And it just hit another roadblock: In early December, a UK judge decided that Oatly cant use the word milk on its products after a UK dairy trade group sued the company over the matter. Its part of a larger trend of the livestock industrys effort to restrict how plant-based companies can market their products. In brighter news, the company recently reported its third-quarter revenue was up about 10 percent compared to 2023, with growth in the main regions in which it operates. Despite a flagging stock price, Oatly is down but not out. KT45 percent of the US egg supply will be cage-free by late November (70 percent) WRONGThe US egg industry is still headed toward a cage-free future, but in 2024, it moved slower in that direction than I thought it would. Instead of amounting to 45 percent of the egg supply, cage-free reached 40.3 percent, just a 1.5 percent increase from late 2023.I was confident it would reach 45 percent for three reasons: Since 2019, the share of egg-laying hens raised cage-free had been growing by about 5 percent annually, several states had cage-free laws banning the sale and production of caged eggs going into effect in 2024, and many large food companies had committed to a 100 percent cage-free egg supply by 2025.Why was I so off? I likely discounted the impact the bird flu has had on the US egg industry; this year, the virus has resulted in the mass killing of 44.1 million hens as of mid-December more than double that of 2023. I was also overconfident on corporate progress; according to the animal protection group the Humane League, many large food companies are behind on fulfilling their cage-free pledges. Lastly, I probably overestimated the impact of the 2024 state laws in Nevada, Oregon, and Washington; each have small egg industries and relatively small populations.We might see the pace of progress accelerate in 2025: The states implementing cage-free laws next year Michigan and Colorado have a slightly bigger combined population than the three states from last year and, more importantly, they have much bigger egg industries. Meanwhile, the countrys largest egg producer, Cal-Maine, will have a number of new cage-free farms going online in summer 2025. But the ongoing bird flu outbreak combined with the unpredictability of corporate pledges could shift the trajectory. KTRows of chickens in battery cages feed at an egg laying poultry farm in Ranga Reddy district, Telangana, India, on November 7, 2015. Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesMore than 20 million poultry birds will be culled due to bird flu (60 percent) RIGHTI hate that this is true, but I was right on this one two times over. More than 40 million chickens and turkeys were killed in the poultry industrys H5N1 bird flu outbreak. And thats just this year since the outbreak began in early 2022, over 120 million have been culled.Most of those are not killed by the avian flu itself; rather, any time theres a single detection of the disease at a poultry facility, all of the birds are exterminated, often with gruesome methods, like literally overheating them to death with industrial heaters. Three years into this never-ending nightmare, both the factory farm industry and animal advocates are faced with the reality that the bird flu may be here to stay. And one disturbing development we couldnt have predicted last year: H5N1 is now pervasive in another farm animal species, dairy cows, across the country. Next year, I think this disease will keep surprising us. MBMore animal rights activists will be sentenced to jail or prison (40 percent) WRONG My reasoning here was based on criminal trials being incredibly unpredictable so while I thought it was more likely that at least one animal rights activist would be incarcerated than any other single outcome, I put the probability at less than 50 percent. The prediction was mostly a product of recency bias: Barely a month before we made our 2024 predictions, Wayne Hsiung, one of the most prominent US animal rights activists and a co-founder of the group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), was convicted and sentenced to jail for his involvement in actions at two California factory farms. DxE activists have run many similar actions over the last decade, employing a strategy they call open rescue, in which they enter factory farms and other places where animals are exploited, remove a few animals and take them to live at a sanctuary, and invite confrontation with the criminal legal system. The first few criminal cases I covered involving the group ended in either dismissals or miraculous acquittals. But Hsiungs 2023 jail sentence made it feel like the bill was coming due. This year, I suspected that a long-awaited DxE court case, involving the rescue of three beagles from a company that breeds them for animal testing, would end in prison time because I knew it would be harder for the activists to make a legal argument for acquittal than in farm animal cases. But sure enough, the case was dismissed shortly before trial. More DxE trials are scheduled for next year, but now I know better than to try to predict the outcome. MBCulture and sportsBillie Eilish will win a Grammy for What Was I Made For? (90 percent) RIGHT This was a big year for Billie! I didnt predict her new album or extensive world tour, but its not rocket science to know that the academy loves her work. With a previous win for the James Bond theme she did back in 2020, the Song of the Year award was a shoo-in. This years Future Perfect 50 honoree and superstar is only missing a Tony and an Emmy for that sweet, sweet EGOT status. Izzie RamirezBillie Eilish accepts a Grammy for the song What Was I Made For? Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty ImagesOne of the Kardashian-Jenners will appear in a Schiaparelli dress for the Met Gala (60 percent) WRONGI was wrong on this one it wound up being Jennifer Lopez who looked beautiful in Schiaparelli. Whichever Kardashian-Jenner decided to read this and prove me wrong: noted. But honestly its better this way. J. Lo was a co-chair for the event alongside fashion darling Zendaya, so she needed the extra zhuzh. IROppenheimer will win Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards (70 percent) RIGHTWhat did I write last year? The Academy loves biopics, it loves period pieces, and for some reason, it weirdly loves modern films that feature black-and-white scenes. To no ones surprise, Oppenheimer ran away with the show at the 96th Academy Awards, winning seven Oscars, including Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, Best Director for Christopher Nolan, and yes, Best Picture. Hot dog!So, since explaining why something we knew would happen happened is pretty boring, Im going to instead discuss an all-time-great Oppenheimer-related query posted on the subreddit r/NoStupidQuestions:Well, Rafe_Cameron_OBX, is it weird that your boyfriend watches Oppenheimer for as much as 15 hours a week? I think it depends on a few things. Does he obsessively watch and rewatch the bravura scene of the Trinity test? Has he started mumbling something about being death, destroyer of worlds in his sleep? (Assuming he sleeps.) You say he always makes time for you, which is great, but does he insist on reciting lines from the Bhagavad Gita when hes, uh, making time?While Im hesitant to interfere in another persons relationship, if the answer to any of these questions is yes, I strongly suggest you drop him immediately. Im worried that if he doesnt get treatment he may progress to a more advanced stage of Christopher Nolanism and start making you watch Interstellar three to five times a week. BWYou dont have to be Bill James to know that two-way baseball super-duper megastar Shohei Ohtani had a pretty good year in 2024, his first with the Los Angeles Dodgers, even though an elbow injury kept him from pitching. He hit .310, good for fifth in the majors. He recorded 130 RBIs (second in the majors) and had an OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage, the gold standard hitting stat) of 1.036, also good for second in baseball. He became the first player in major league history to hit more than 50 homers and steal more than 50 bases, becoming the only player in the 50/50 club. On September 19, he had what many people consider the single best offensive game in the 121-year history of Major League Baseball, going 6-for-6 with three home runs, two doubles, 10 RBIs, and two stolen bases. Oh, and he went on to win a championship, too.The one thing Ohtani did not do is the one thing I predicted he would do: lead the major leagues in home runs in 2024. Ohtani mashed 54 taters, which would have been good enough to at least tie for the majors lead in all but three of the past 24 seasons. Unfortunately, very big boy Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees took the crown this season with 58 home runs. Ill admit, my mistake here was forgetting that as spectacular as Ohtani is across the board in baseball, the 6-foot-7, 282-pound Judge is really, really good at mashing dingers, at least in the regular season. He flamed out in his championship series against Ohtanis Dodgers, going 4-for-18 with just one homer and three RBIs, enraging Yankees fans across the country. So even though my prediction failed, Id say advantage: Ohtani. BW Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

A render based on 'leaks' of the Nintendo Switch 2 is doing the rounds online, and could be the closest we'll get to knowing what the system looks like before Nintendo reveals itTech11:11, 30 Dec 2024Nintendo Switch 2 is coming, but when?Amid our list of the biggest gaming releases for 2025, there's one piece of hardware the Nintendo Switch 2.A recent leak seemingly confirmed the name, and one Reddit user claims to have got their hands on the hardware early, meaning the follow-up to one of the best-selling consoles of all time is coming into focus.Now, one render doing the rounds online might give us our closest look at what Nintendo's new system could look like, and while it's not massively different from the current iteration, it's getting people talking just as one site has put a release date on the system.Content cannot be displayed without consentPosting on X (formerly Twitter), user Ely has shared a quartet of pictures showing the Switch 2 render, its updated Joy-Con controllers and the included dock.It's in the dark grey colour that was available at the launch of the first Switch, which has been reported to be one of the options at launch of the new system, and it looks like its display is more visible than the current Switch when docked.Is this the Nintendo Switch 2?(Image: @KirPinkFury/X)Ely's post (translated via X) caveats that some of the design elements are speculative as they've not been included in any prior leaks, including the back cover of the dock, but it's certainly a looker.The render comes around the same time that an Italian site has claimed that a "very reliable source" says the Switch 2 will launch on March 28, 2025. That'd put it just past the eight year anniversary of the last console.UAGNA claims the source expects accessories from third-parties to arrive on that same day, but given Nintendo hasn't even revealed the system yet we're skeptical at best. Still, we'll be sure to update you if we hear more especially since the company is expected to showcase the system at some point in January 2025.Looking for games to keep you playing your current Switch in the meantime? Be sure to check out our Nintendo Switch gift guide, which includes titles and accessories to tide you over until the next console.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.RECOMMENDED

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is getting a Squid Game crossover next month but fans are disappointed it'll introduce yet another microtransaction category to a game already packed with themTech10:27, 30 Dec 2024Activision's next microtransaction has upset the community(Image: Activision)It was all going so well for Call of Duty this year. Not only was Black Ops 6 a fantastic new entry in the series, but Season 1 Reloaded was packed with content for it and Warzone.Aside from the usual issues of cheaters in Warzone and a surprise visit from a six-fingered Zombie Santa Claus, it felt like Activision's powerhouse shooter was firing on all cylinders again ahead of its January collab with Squid Game.Sadly, that run appears to have come to an end as the series' community is up in arms over the company adding yet more microtransactions to a game packed full of them already.Content cannot be displayed without consentWhile we don't know what the Squid Game event pass will contain for Black Ops 6 players, a message on the game's menu says "Explore an exhilarating Event Pass, where the Premium Track route allows for more incredible rewards, including the Front Man Operator".In response to longtime Call of Duty information account's post on X (formerly Twitter), players have begun slamming Activision."This is totally what the community asked for. Glad they're listening," one joked, while another said "I'd be fine with this if they put more towards combating cheaters".Some compared it with the monetisation of titles like Fortnite, but that's a free-to-play title which makes context important.Squid Game Season 2 is on Netflix now(Image: NETFLIX)Call of Duty Black Ops 6 (unless you have it via Xbox Game Pass) will set players back 60-70 (more for the premium editions), and each season has a season pass of around 10. Then there's a premium pass, Blackcell, on top of that which adds even more cosmetics and includes the pass for around 30.Then there are store bundles in-game that cost CoD points purchased with real money, leading some to say enough is enough.Still, maybe we'll be wrong and the new event pass will justify its existence with a low price and decent rewards.Thankfully, if Black Ops 6 isn't for you, we've covered not once, but twice, that classic games in the long-running series are being added to the Microsoft Store, which means we're expecting fresh additions to Xbox Game Pass.They may not arrive for a while, but World at War could be first.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.RECOMMENDED

Its been more than seven years, so where is NieR 3? (Square Enix)It will be the NieR series 15th anniversary next year and the series producer hopes to have something new to share for the occasion.Despite it being a sequel to a cult classic from 2010 that not many people played, 2017s NieR: Automata far exceeded everyones expectations, especially those of publisher Square Enix.Its early success prompted Square Enix to turn NieR into a full franchise. But while this has since led to a modern remaster of the original NieR, an anime adaptation, a now defunct mobile spin-off, and crossovers with so many other video games, there remains no sign of a proper sequel.A NieR 3 is bound to happen, though, considering NieR: Automata is still selling well over seven years later, and fans have been given a glimmer of hope that an announcement or teaser for it could happen in 2025.Will there be a NieR 3?Recently, Japanese outlet 4Gamer spoke with various game creators about their plans and ambitions for 2025. Among them was Square Enixs Yosuke Saito, a producer on the NieR series.Saito had said earlier this year that he was once again working with NieR series creator Yoko Taro and NieR composer Keiichi Okabe on a new project, cryptically teasing it might be NieR, it might not be NieR.While Saito left enough room for doubt, his teasing comments to 4Gamer suggest hed like to share something on the next [NieR] game in 2025, especially since that year marks the 15th anniversary of the series.Id like to do something for [the 15th anniversary], said Saito (as translated by Gematsu). What should we do maybe something with the next game, or developments related to that Ive been hearing the fans expectations.More TrendingHe unfortunately stopped short of explicitly promising anything. But an anniversary year is perhaps the best time for Square Enix to at least tease a new game.Considering Square Enix itself referred to NieR: Automata as a global hit far in excess of our expectations, youd think the publisher would have begun pushing for a sequel back in 2017.If not, NieR: Automatas continued sales success certainly would have. Last year, it was confirmed to have sold 7.5 million units worldwide and since then, that numbers soared even higher to more than 9 million units as revealed by the official NieR X account.The real question is whether any NieR sequel will launch as a PlayStation exclusive like NieR: Automata did and only come to other platforms afterwards. The answer is likely no as Square Enix has decided to more vigorously pursue multiplatform releases. The very first NieR didnt come anywhere close to selling this many copies (X)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralExclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy