Magic: The Gathering is preparing to return to the world of Marvel Comics once again with the upcoming Marvel’s History of Heroes product and the full list of all 30 cards has just been revealed.

All 30 Cards in Secret Lair: Marvel’s History of Heroes

Magic: The Gathering has returned to the world of Marvel quite a few times lately and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down its pace. In addition to the upcoming Darkhold-themed set that arrives in April 2027, there is also a new Secret Lair Countdown Kit bringing more Marvel reprints and alternate art to the Secret Lair collection.

Each copy of Secret Lair Countdown Kit: Marvel’s History of Heroes contains 30 individually packaged Magic cards, each of which represents an era or moment from the history of the Marvel Universe. These cards randomly appear in non-foil, foil, or—when the stars and spells align—surge foil.

Marvel’s History of Heroes launches on November 2, 2026. The Secret Lair Countdown Kit: Marvel’s History of Heroes will cost collectors $199.99.

Here is the full list of all cards included in Secret Lair: Marvel’s History of Heroes:

• Fierce Guardianship
• Molten Duplication
• Unbreakable Formation
• Timber Protector
• Devastation
• Heroic Intervention
• Opposition Agent
• Fighter Class
• Vigor
• Biorhythm
• Tainted Pact
• With Great Power
• Mjolnir, Storm Hammer
• Champion’s Helm
• Force of Virtue
• Court of Bounty
• Unholy Heat
• Villainous Wrath
• Damning Verdict
• Primal Might
• Damn
• Genesis Wave
• Fiery Confluence
• Beta Ray Bill
• Doctor Strange, Master of Magic
• Rogue’s Gloves
• Snuff Out
• Titanic Ultimatum
• Collective Effort
• Lightning Bolt

A particularly interesting inclusion in the Countdown Kit is the appearance of two cards from a set that hasn’t been released yet. Doctor Strange, Master of Magic and Beta Ray Bill both appear in Secret Lair Countdown Kit: Marvel’s History of Heroes, representing the arcane and godlike corners of the Marvel Universe.

These are two uncommon cards from the main set of Magic: The Gathering | Marvel: Darkhold Destiny. Both cards will be legal in all formats starting with Magic: The Gathering | Marvel: Darkhold Destiny Prerelease events, which begin on April 2, 2027.

As always, shoppers should keep in mind that Secret Lair products are limited print runs and tend to sell out very quickly. That means that interested Marvel fans will want to act quickly and secure an order as soon as the Secret Lair drop goes on sale.

Be sure to check back soon for more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.

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Magic: The Gathering’s next big set officially launches in just about a little less than a month, but it sounds like some of the products may unfortunately be delayed due to production and shipping issues.

Magic: The Gathering: Star Trek Commander Decks Likely Delayed in North America

Reality Fracture just arrived a few weeks ago, but it’s already time to begin looking ahead to the next major Magic: The Gathering set. Spoiler season begins next week for the upcoming Star Trek-themed Universes Beyond set and the set is scheduled to arrive in stores on November 13.

That said, some unfortunately shipping and production issues may impact that release date for some of the products. Luckily, Play Boosters and Prerelease Packs are on track for availability during Prerelease and release events.

Other products may be delayed depending on your region. Some products may arrive after Prerelease events on November 6, while others may arrive after the set’s tabletop release on November 13.

“These delays are fluid, as our logistics teams are working to speed up timelines where possible, so always check with your local game store or retailer for availability information.”

As of today, here is the list of which products are impacted in each region:

• North America
  • Commander decks are delayed and may arrive after the tabletop release date.
• Europe, The Middle East, and Africa
  • Collector Boosters (English, French, and German languages) are delayed and may arrive after the tabletop release date.
  • Commander decks (French and German languages) are delayed and may arrive after Prerelease.
  • Collector’s Edition Commander decks are delayed and may arrive after Prerelease, with additional quantities arriving after the tabletop release date.
  • Commander decks (English language), Draft Night, Scene Boxes, and Beam Me Up Bundles are delayed and may arrive after the tabletop release date.
• Asia-Pacific
  • Collector Boosters, Omega Collector Boosters (single Collector Boosters available at larger retailers), Bundles, Beam Me Up Bundles, and Draft Night are delayed and may arrive after the tabletop release date.
  • For New Zealand, Scene Boxes are delayed and may arrive after the tabletop release date.

Commander is an incredibly popular format in North America, so there will definitely be plenty of players eagerly awaiting the arrival of those preconstructed decks. We’ll be sure to stay posted on the latest updates and share any new schedule details as they become official.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates as the Star Trek set’s launch date approaches.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena. The Magic: The Gathering: Star Trek products are aiming for a November 13 launch.

The post Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek Commander Decks Are Delayed appeared first on VICE.

This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive their stories in your inbox every week.

Some 86 years ago, Missouri voters enshrined a system for selecting top judges that would remove political influence from the courts. And almost immediately, it came under attack.

Under what has come to be known as the Missouri Plan, lawyers help choose a slate of three candidates from which the governor must make an appointment for the state Supreme Court, appeals courts and, in some populous areas, the circuit courts. 

In the first years after adoption, it faced pushback from party bosses who had historically used judicial seats for political patronage. They said it gave too much power to the lawyers. Voters, though, decisively defeated a repeal measure in 1942. 

More recently, the conservative activist Leonard Leo, who viewed Missouri as a crucial battleground, tried in 2007 to persuade Republican Gov. Matt Blunt to reject a slate of Supreme Court candidates — part of a broader effort to weaken a judicial selection system that had become a model for some two dozen states around the country. 

Blunt resisted and picked one of the three judges from the approved slate. 

Then, in 2012, GOP lawmakers put a proposed overhaul before voters that, if approved, would have given the governor more control. Voters, by a 3-to-1 margin, turned back the plan.

Now the attacks are back, driven by a new grievance. 

Reality Fracture adds a lot of new cards to the arsenal for Magic: The Gathering players, but one deck continues to dominate the field in the Modern format metagame.

All The Most Popular Decks in the Modern Metagame

Magic: The Gathering’s Modern format doesn’t have as many major shakeups as a rotating format like Standard, but a new set launch tends to bring a few new staples into the card pool that can have an impact.

At this point in the season, enough tournaments have taken place after the Reality Fracture launch for the number crunchers to begin studying what sort of impact the new set has had. Frank Karsten’s latest Metagame Mentor report reveals that Broodscale Combo is dominating the format by taking up 17.3% of the field and boasting an impressive 54.8% match win rate.

“Decks with poor matchups against Broodscale Combo, such as Esper Goryo’s, Esper Blink, Eldrazi Tron, Boros Land Destruction, and Dimir Midrange, are gradually declining in popularity… At the same time, decks with favorable matchups against Broodscale Combo, including properly tuned Boros Energy, Jeskai Blink, Jeskai Chant, and Azorius Chant, have been climbing in popularity. Azorius Chant in particular went 149-76 against Broodscale Combo across the last five Regional Championships, good for a 66% matchup. As a result, Azorius Chant has emerged as one of the best ways to defeat Broodscale Combo.”

Here is the full breakdown of the most popular decks in the Modern format as of mid-October 2026 (in order of popularity and performance):

• Broodscale Combo
• Izzet Prowess
• Boros Energy
• Esper Blink
• Izzet Affinity
• Azorius Chant
• Domain Zoo
• Esper Goryo’s
• Eldrazi Tron
• Devoted Druid Combo
• Amulet Titan
• Ruby Storm
• Dimir Midrange
• Jeskai Blink
• Boros Land Destruction
• Living End
• Rakdos Delirium
• Simic Neoform
• Jeskai Chant
• Tameshi Belcher
• Eldrazi Trudge
• Other

For those who are less familiar with this format, Modern is a nonrotating 60-card format based on expansion sets, core sets, and straight-to-Modern sets from Eighth Edition forward, save for cards on the banned list.

Although Broodscale Combo is likely to be a top performer at upcoming tournaments, it sounds like there are plenty of decks that specialize in countering that strategy that players can bring to the table if they want to try and play the underdog and fight back against the top deck.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.

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‘We Were Very Fortunate That Something Much, Much Worse Did Not Happen’

For years, but with increasing ferocity lately, the far-right has been directing its hatred toward Indian Americans and other immigrants of South Asian descent. Some Republican candidates have seized on this strain of bigotry, perhaps hoping a panic over demographic change will fuel voter turnout.

This week, this dark, very American story advanced to its inevitable next chapter, as a young man who police have described as unstable targeted a Hindu temple west of Chicago for a mass shooting.

However, when 19-year-old Alexandros Paporakis showed up at the temple in Aurora, Illinois, his gun jammed, police say.

He texted a colleague at Taco Bell, where he worked, about what he was up to. The colleague called the authorities.

“I think we were very fortunate that something much, much worse did not happen,” Palatine, Illinois’ police chief, Bill Nord, told press. “The seriousness of this alleged threat cannot be overstated,” he said later.

Police found tactical gear and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the 19-year-old suspect’s home, as well as white nationalist material. They also found a manifesto titled “Why I Fought: A.K.A.: (Aurora Shooter’s Manifesto).” The manifesto targeted South Asian, Jewish and Black people, per local reports.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) was at the temple on Sunday when Paporakis turned up, he said, and on Thursday called on the feds to get involved.

“We know this type of hate is coursing thorough social media online, it’s exploded,” Krishnamoorthi told a local news station. “We can’t rely on luck, that’s why we have to condemn the hatred. We can’t stay silent, or worse, condone it or fan the flames.”

“Secondly,” he continued, “we have to redirect the FBI’s focus to domestic violent extremism and trying to uncover these plots.”

The FBI, under Trump, has largely abandoned efforts to track neo-Nazi extremists, in some cases repositioning resources toward targeting the president’s critics and political enemies.

Trump’s Long-Brewing Effort to Oust Ilhan Omar From America

The Trump administration effort to eject Muslim representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the country is the culmination of a years-long fixation.

• Way back in 2019, TPM reporter Christopher Mathias noted this week, attendees at Trump rallies were chanting “send her back” when the president mentioned Omar.
• That year, the Washington Post reported yesterday, a “political appointee in the first Trump administration” demanded that DHS scrub Omar’s immigration records for any indication of fraud. It ultimately did not find what it needed to to move forward with a case.
• In its second term, the Trump administration is increasingly attempting to make use of denaturalization, an extremely difficult outcome to achieve legally. That, however, is the goal with its latest investigation of Omar, per the Wall Street Journal.
• To successfully denaturalize someone, “the government needs to show that there was an omission or falsehood on the naturalization paperwork of such magnitude that it would have prevented the person from getting citizenship had the truth been shared with immigration authorities,” writes TPM’s Josh Kovensky, who has been covering the administration’s denaturalization efforts for us since 2024.
• The administration appears to specifically be looking into whether Omar’s father filed immigration paperwork claiming she was 17 when she was actually 18, a theory that has been pushed on the right for years, most prominently by a QAnon-supporting candidate who once challenged Omar in a primary campaign, Josh reports. A 17-year-old minor naturalizes with their parent when their parent obtains citizenship, while an 18-year-old adult must apply for citizenship independently.
• “I think her citizenship is solid and there wasn’t any fraud there,” one former official involved in the 2019 investigation told the Washington Post.

Tabs

• The White House is denying that Trump himself gave the order to restrict Ukraine’s access to Starlink, Bloomberg reports. But the order came “from inside the White House,” Reuters reports. “The officials said ‌leaders at the Defense Department received a message that the SpaceX Starshield service for the Ukrainian military needed to be slowed,” the Reuters report says.
• Meanwhile, Ukraine has run out of patriot missiles, CNN reports. The U.S. seems to be withholding them as Trump punishes the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, for criticizing his pre-midterms diesel deal with Russia. Patriot missiles, which are used as interceptors, are in extremely short supply more generally thanks in part to the war with Iran. As a result, Russian missiles are more easily striking Ukrainian targets.
• Hunter Walker profiles Bobby Pulido, the Tejano singer who, thanks in part to a GOP Texas gerrymandering effort that appears increasingly to have been misguided, stands a real chance of flipping his district from red to blue.

Man of the Hour

It’s longtime Trump friend and now-former State Department Special Envoy for Arts and Culture Paolo Zampolli, who, Politico recently reported, has been in a bizarre, long-running, sprawling feud with his boss, cc-ing a dozen-plus people as they snap at each other over email. Among other issues, Zampolli blamed said boss, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, for, he thought, being the source of a New York Times article that said Zampolli got his longtime girlfriend deported by ICE as part of a custody battle over their son. (Yes, it’s messy.) The girlfriend, in turn, threatened to reveal details she said she knew about Trump, Melania, and Jeffrey Epstein. (Messy.) Anyway, Trump — who, as Josh Marshall observes, suddenly seems to have no taste for drama — canned Zampolli yesterday

Are We at War?

No, says Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA).

“Right now we are defending U.S. assets there, so there is no war as we speak,” Wittman told HuffPost Thursday.

Magic: The Gathering players looking for an inexpensive and aggressive Standard deck may find a perfect match with the Eerie Aggro preconstructed product.

Every Card in the Mono-White Eerie Aggro Deck

Magic: The Gathering players have a ton of options when it comes to building a Standard deck and Magic Arena is attempting to simplify that decision-making process for players who are feeling a little overwhelmed or like their library is missing some key staples.

The Champion Deck: Standard series offers five different competitive Standard decks that players can purchase on Magic Arena and use in upcoming Standard quick play or tournament events.

Magic: The Gathering players who like to stay on the offensive may find a good match in the affordable Eerie Aggro deck. This deck is available now for 2,570 Gems. All of the Champion Decks: Standard lineup will leave the Magic Arena shop on November 9.

Here is the full list of every card included in the preconstructed deck:

Creature

• 3 Spellbook Vendor
• 4 Optimistic Scavenger
• 4 Veteran Survivor
• 4 Skyward Spider

Enchantment

• 4 Ethereal Armor
• 4 Feather of Flight
• 4 Shardmage’s Rescue
• 4 Sheltered by Ghosts
• 3 Seam Rip
• 3 Origin of Spider-Man

Artifact

• 1 Lavaspur Boots

Instant

• 1 Divine Resilience

Land

• 9 Plains
• 1 Dalkovan Encampment
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 10 Plains

The budget deck has a pretty straightforward strategy that is a good fit for players looking to jump into the format quickly or just find a speedy way to compete with some of the slower decks that may be dominating the format in the late game.

If Eerie Aggro doesn’t seem like a good fit, there other build are also available as part of the Champion Deck: Standard series:

• Planeswalker Control
• Cleric Life Gain
• Lizard Aggro
• Kona Combo

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.

The post Magic: The Gathering – Full Eerie Aggro Decklist Revealed appeared first on VICE.

Magic: The Gathering players who enjoy winning games with a combo that feels like cheating will definitely want to check out the decklist for the Kona Combo preconstructed product.

Every Card in the Kona Combo Preconstructed Deck

This week Magic Arena is adding five preconstructed decks to the shop as part of the Champion Series: Standard product drop. There’s a nice variety of archetypes available to ensure that different types of players can find a deck that fits their playstyle.

Magic: The Gathering players who prefer to win by carefully piecing together a game-ending combo should definitely take a moment to check out the Kona Combo list. This deck is available for 17,450 Gems from October 16 through November 9.

Here is a breakdown of the full Kona Combo decklist:

Creature

• 1 Terror of the Peaks
• 4 Kona, Rescue Beastie
• 4 Marang River Regent
• 3 Formidable Speaker

Enchantment

• 4 Omniscience
• 3 Lost in the Maze
• 4 Roiling Dragonstorm

Instant

• 3 Spell Snare
• 3 Dispelling Exhale
• 3 Consult the Star Charts

Sorcery

• 4 Stock Up

Land

• 2 Island
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Breeding Pool
• 4 Willowrush Verge
• 4 Evendo, Waking Haven
• 4 Uthros, Titanic Godcore
• 2 Island

Players who aren’t as comfortable playing combo decks may want to check out one of the other Champion Series: Standard decks instead:

• Planeswalker Control
• Cleric Life Gain
• Lizard Aggro
• Eerie Aggro

Prices vary from deck to deck based on how many Rares and Mythic Rares are included in each list. That said, the price isn’t necessarily a representation of the power level. The decks go live on October 16 and it will be very interesting to see how frequently they pop up in Quick Match rounds and Standard tournament events in the coming weeks.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.

The post Magic: The Gathering – Kona Combo Full Decklist Revealed appeared first on VICE.

Startup Ambrosia Energy will build a massive factory to crank out batteries to augment solar panels, creating a round-the-clock clean power plant.

Magic: The Gathering collectors can pick up some iconic and powerful cards reimagined with new artwork from classic Magic artists in the next big Secret Lair drop.

All Cards In the Duality Distorted Secret Lair Drop

Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming Reality Fracture Secret Lair Drop contains two different exciting products for collectors to check out. Manga fans may want to secure the Strange School cards, while fans of classic Magic cards and art could be tempted by the Duality Distorted collection.

“Four classic cards had such a hold on one of our designers, in fact, that we created an entire drop about reimagining them. Duality Distorted invites four beloved Magic artists back into the collections of players on a series of retro frame cards. Each artist’s piece was inspired by one of their earlier works, letting you see how their style has grown and shifted over the years. Next time you turn-one Thoughtseize your opponent, make sure you take a Brainstorm for maximum distortion.”

Here is a full list of everything included in the Duality Distorted product:

• 1x Thoughtseize
• 1x Desperate Ritual
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Tribute to the World Tree

Collectors who want to purchase this set can pick up the Non-foil version for $29.99 or the Foil version for $39.99.

Additionally, this product is included in the larger Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundles. The Non-foil Edition Bundle costs $159.98 and the Foil Edition Bundle will cost $179.98.

As always, shoppers should keep in mind that Secret Lair drops have limited print runs and tend to sellout very quickly. Anyone who definitely wants the Duality Distorted cards should do their best to secure an order right at launch, before it sells out and the secondhand market begins raising the prices.

The drops will be available soon exclusively through the Secret Lair Chaos Vault. At this time, an exact date and time for the launch has not been confirmed.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.

The post Magic: The Gathering – All Duality Distorted Cards and Where to Get Them appeared first on VICE.

Magic: The Gathering players can pick up this preconstructed deck to overpower enemies with Liliana the Faultless and the rest of her life gaining allies.

Every Card In the Cleric Life Gain Preconstructed Deck

Standard is one of Magic: The Gathering’s most popular format, but building a competitive deck quickly can be challenging for players who don’t have tons of money to rip open physical or digital packs.

Magic Arena is trying to entice more players into the online platform’s Standard events by offering some pretty powerful preconstructed decks in the shop this month. The Champion Deck: Standard series includes five powerful decks that players can pick up and take straight into a Standard match.

Players who like gaining life and casting a lot of creatures may want to check out the Cleric Life Gain decklist. Magic Arena players will be able to purchase the Cleric Life Gain deck from the Magic Arena shop for 13,820 Gems when it becomes available on October 16.

Here is the full breakdown of every card included in the Cleric Life Gain deck:

Creature

• 4 Amalia Benavides Aguirre
• 4 Essence Channeler
• 4 Starscape Cleric
• 4 Hinterland Sanctifier
• 4 Haliya, Guided by Light
• 4 Virulent Emissary
• 3 Liliana the Faultless
• 3 Moseo, Vein’s New Dean

Enchantment

• 4 Case of the Uneaten Feast
• 4 Lunar Convocation

Land

• 4 Godless Shrine
• 4 Temple Garden
• 4 Starting Town
• 3 Plains
• 2 Plains
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Swamp

Planeswalker

• 2 Professor Dellian Fel

Players who want to pick up this deck will need to act quickly when it arrives on October 16. The Cleric Life Gain deck and the other Champion Decks: Standard product line will only be available until November 9.

If Cleric Life Gain doesn’t seem like the best archetype for a particular player, they can also consider checking out one of the other preconstructed Standard decks that are a part of this series:

• Planeswalker Control
• Lizard Aggro
• Kona Combo
• Eerie Aggro

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic: Arena.

The post Magic: The Gathering – Cleric Life Gain Full Decklist Revealed appeared first on VICE.

Magic: The Gathering is preparing for another Secret Lair drop and this special limited-edition group of products includes a twisted set that brings macabre anime style to life with Strange School.

All Cards in the Limited-Edition Magic: The Gathering Strange School Drop

Magic: The Gathering collectors had a chance to pick up some manga-inspired Secrets of Strixhaven limited-edition cards back in April and now Secret Lair is returning with a twisted manga version of Hexhaven, as well.

Starting with Reality Fracture, every Magic Multiverse set will feature a Secret Lair Bundle that combines the set’s hottest new cards with a bit of Secret Lair flair.

To match the twisted vibes of Reality Fracture’s Hexhaven, we’re leaning into macabre manga with 怪異学校 — Strange School. Each card features black and white artwork from Japanese artists and illustrators paired with a thematic mono-black card to complete this drop’s grim aesthetic.

Here is the full list of every card included in the Strange School drop:

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Bitter Ordeal
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Soul Spike

Collectors will be able to grab the Non-foil version for $29.99 or the Foil version for $39.99.

Alternatively, shoppers can also grab the full Chaos Vault: Reality Fracture for $159.98 or a Foil version of the full bundle for $179.98.

Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle Bundles, 怪異学校 — Strange School, and Duality Distorted launch in the Chaos Vault soon, but the exact time and date have not been confirmed yet.

These limited edition products will likely sell out very quickly once they go on sale, so players who are excited about this group of cards should keep an eye on the Secret Lair website and secure their pre-order as soon as the drop arrives.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops or digitally through Magic Arena.

The post Magic: The Gathering – All Strange School Cards and Where To Get Them appeared first on VICE.

The European Commission’s bid to make the EU’s billions more responsive to the unknown crises of the future might also make them more prone to misuse, the EU’s top spending watchdog warned.

European Court of Auditors President Tony Murphy said key pillars of the Commission’s plan to overhaul the EU’s long-term budget would muddy the view for those in charge of making sure public money is spent as intended.

“It’s more difficult for us to follow the money,” Murphy said. “You’re saying to the member state, here’s a whole lot of money, and you make sure everything is okay. It’s sort of a self-policing.”

The warning comes as EU leaders continue fighting over the price tag for the EU’s post-2027 budget in Brussels this week — and as the auditors document an increase in misspending of taxpayer funds.

Yet separate from the budget’s bottom line is the debate over how that money gets divided. As a spending cycle marked by the pandemic, wars and climate-fueled disruption comes to a close, the Commission wants to make the next seven-year budget more agile by assigning about half of it — almost a trillion euros over seven years — to a single pot of money that countries can spend on objectives ranging from migration to agriculture and regional development.

Those agriculture and regional development funds — often delivered in the form of subsidies to farms and local projects — have long been vulnerable to fraud and misuse.

According to Murphy, giving capitals more leeway to shift spending would make spending even harder to track.

“There will be some flexibility, but at what cost?” he said in an interview. More of the oversight will depend on the checks each country has already put in place.

As it stands, misspending of the EU budget was on the rise last year, with errors affecting transactions for an estimated €5 billion according to the ECA’s latest report.

In the next EU budget, it might not be possible to even estimate such a number, Murphy warned, as each country’s auditors have different roles and ways of doing things. His head of cabinet, Wolfgang Stolz, added during the interview: “Year after year we have found that the work of these auditing authorities is not fully reliable.”

In a statement, the Commission defended its proposal, underlining that “key principles” of the current control system will remain in place. National authorities are “well-functioning,” the statement contended, but added that the Commission would maintain the right to ask capitals to “amend the plan or introduce correction mechanisms if needed.”

‘Mixed bag’

One of the Commission’s proposed innovations is putting the Common Agricultural Policy — historically a standalone budget line — into a behemoth umbrella fund known as the National and Regional Partnership Plans.

Murphy stressed that he’s not advocating for any model over the other. But as EU money increasingly merges with national budgets, it will be harder for Brussels to monitor where its money actually goes. The CAP is simpler to audit when “it’s not mixed up in this mixed bag,” Murphy said.

Headlines about farm subsidies paying for fake pastures in Greece and cash meant to support rural tourism in Slovakia instead going to luxury villas for the rich offer lurid illustrations of the challenge of policing these funds under the current system.

And the model for the new spending system — the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund — doesn’t bode well, Murphy said. While it became easier for countries to direct the funds where they were needed, the spending also became more opaque. The new national plans were designed using the same blueprint.

Under the current budget system, the ECA can physically visit a farm that receives EU funds. However, under the Covid recovery fund, the EU publishes only the top 100 beneficiaries each year.

“It’s not very transparent. I mean, where is the EU money actually ending up? That’s what matters,” Murphy said. “You have a fund where there are different policy areas with completely different objectives and timeframes, different delivery mechanisms and less predictability.”

Magic: The Gathering players will soon have the chance to pick up a powerful planeswalker-themed preconstructed Standard deck to add to their collection.

Every Card in Champion Deck: Standard | Planeswalker Control

Magic Arena is preparing to release five new Standard decks on the MTG Arena Store on October 16. The Champion Decks include a variety of playstyles and there should be something for every type of player in the collection.

The decks are quite powerful for preconstructed products and offer players an instant way to dive into competitive Standard tournaments with a respectable decklist. Players who take a liking to a particular deck can find ways to improve and enhance it as their collection on Magic Arena grows.

When it arrives later this month, the Planeswalker Control Champion Deck will be available on Magic Arena for 13,050 Gems.

Here is a full breakdown of every card included in the preconstructed Planeswalker Control deck:

Creature

• 2 Theorist’s Proxy
• 2 Wan Shi Tong, Librarian

Instant

• 4 Countersculpt
• 4 Fatehold Charm
• 4 Get Lost
• 4 Jace’s Machinations
• 1 Final Showdown

Sorcery

• 3 Day of Judgment
• 2 Split Up

Land

• 1 Theorist’s Sanctum
• 2 Plains
• 1 Demolition Field
• 4 Floodfarm Verge
• 1 Fountainport
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 3 Island
• 2 Meticulous Archive
• 2 Plains
• 3 Island
• 1 Restless Anchorage
• 2 Fabled Passage

Planeswalker

• 2 Chandra, Chill of Compliance
• 3 Jace, Reality Sculptor
• 3 The Theorist, Jace Beleren

Planeswalker Control and the other four new Champion Decks will be available in the store until November 9. The other decks in the collection include Cleric Life Gain, Lizard Aggro, Kona Combo, and Eerie Aggro.

There are also a range of prices for the decks, depending on how many rares and mythic rares each of the different deck lists include.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering and Magic Arena news and updates.

Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.

The post Magic: The Gathering – Planeswalker Control Full Decklist Revealed appeared first on VICE.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, campaigned earlier this year at a church alongside an Islamophobic pastor who has preached that Muslims are building a “caliphate” in the U.S.; that “Satan” is using Islam to launch an “apocalyptic” and “multi-front war” against America; and that the global “rebellion of Islam” is led “by the Devil himself.”

Ramaswamy, a billionaire businessman and former presidential candidate, is currently trailing in the polls to Democrat Amy Acton in the state’s closely-watched gubernatorial race. Earlier this year, on May 21, he held a campaign stop at the Liberty Valley Church — which describes itself as a “Bible-Believing Non Denominational Patriotic Church” — alongside Pastor Jeff Tauring. 

Only two months before the event, according to a video reviewed by Talking Points Memo, Tauring delivered a Sunday sermon in which he told his congregation that the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, both posed existential threats to Americans. 

Five years after the height of the Covid pandemic, how much better prepared is the EU for the next health crisis?

Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO health reporter Helen Collis and global health expert Michel Kazatchkine to discuss the mysterious death of a worker at a Russian anti-plague institute, and what it tells us about international health cooperation and transparency.

They look at what became of Brussels’ post-Covid ambitions — from the EU’s HERA health-emergency authority to better coordination of research — and at Donald Trump’s push to bring down US drug prices by putting pressure on Europe to pay more.

Plus: As Brussels tries to compete with the U.S. and China on biotech and new medicines, is it focusing on the innovation patients actually need?

Questions? Comments? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Amazon-owned Ring is entering the smart lock market with a device designed to tackle a common concern: getting locked out when the battery dies.

Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise

The Missouri gerrymandering fight felt a lot like old-school Republican politics: boring, procedural trickery to rig the systems of government in their favor. 

Newly-installed traffic lights at a busy corner in Stretford, England, keep failing and leaving motorists fightened and confused. Part of a £17.6m (about $24m) redevelopment of the town center, the new lights have gone out three times, reports the Manchester Evening News, a pattern one local councillor described as "very odd." — Read the rest

The post Slugs blamed for broken traffic lights appeared first on Boing Boing.

Flow Engineering, which is bringing AI agents to hardware design, also landed Roelof Botha as an angel investor and board member.

Last Wednesday, the head of an AI tech company casually announced, in a long-winded post on X, a discovery that, if true, would represent a major breakthrough in biomedical research. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, wrote that his company’s large language model Claude had found “a molecular machine that we suspect could represent a new gene editing mechanism.” 

So what does this “molecular machine” actually do? No one is entirely sure yet. But that hasn’t stopped tech bros from already upholding it as a new version of CRISPR, the enzyme-wielding tool that cuts up DNA like nobody’s business, sparking a revolution in ultra-precise genetic modification that has spanned research in everything from agriculture to cancer therapy. It’s no surprise its discoverers earned a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. If an AI program really just made a similar discovery, it would be big news.

Indeed, Amodei goes on to say that this finding could be a step toward developing cures for most diseases in five to 10 years. The company’s press release goes into more detail, but basically says that Claude was prompted to search through a massive database of DNA sequences for reverse transcriptases, enzymes that copy RNA into DNA. “After 21 hours spent searching this data by roughly 950 agents using 210 million tokens, one of the agents spotted something remarkable: a repeating pattern of DNA sequences that occurs next to the gene for an odd-looking RT,” the statement reads. Except that nothing about that is so “remarkable,” at least according to numerous people who study and work in this field.

“It is too soon to say that Claude — or the team of human researchers involved has discovered a ‘new CRISPR,’” Dimitri Perrin, an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology, writes in The Conversation. He goes on to emphasize that what Claude found — a previously uncharacterized enzyme system found in viruses that infect bacteria — isn’t necessarily going to be useful. More research is needed, but Perrin explains that for now, the discovery is “CRISPR-like in its architecture, but there is no evidence that it is CRISPR-like in its function.”

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“Claude’s work isn’t even close to being in the same league as DeepMind’s AlphaFold system for predicting protein structure, which is proving to be truly transformative,” Michael Le Page, a senior reporter at New Scientist, wrote. Social media exploded with other examples of people dunking on Anthropic’s PR, with Simon Maechling, a PhD chemist, writing on X, “Claude discovered something in biology. Nobody knows what it does. But we already have the press release. … Finding something interesting isn’t the same as understanding it. Understanding it isn’t the same as showing it works. And showing it works isn’t the same as making it useful.”

Perhaps AI researcher Timnit Gebru summarized it best: “Please see what experts in this field are saying about this ‘discovery’ and not these scammers or press stenographers. This hype DDOS from them isn’t going to stop any time soon and we’ve seen how the mainstream media is doing press-release-as-a-service at this point.”

So it seems like Anthropic is making some pretty bold claims over something that is mildly cool and worth investigating, but at this point, also seems unlikely to revolutionize medicine or science. Why does this matter? A tech company making extreme claims is far from new. Big deal. But contrast all this hype (not to mention the energy spent debunking it) with the buzz just a few weeks ago about how, in just a few years, AI will supposedly gain sentience and kill off humanity. Consider how Anthropic CEO’s Amodei is among those pushing such a narrative, including warning that his company’s tools carry a risk of being used for cyberattacks or terrorism, including developing deadly viruses. Taken together, this presents a false dichotomy: AI will either end disease and suffering or inflict it in untold measure. Might there be a third option?

For anyone who buys the AI spiel, it’s a tool with boundless power. For now, however, the tech companies still rely on an old-fashioned kind of power offered by the state, which is precisely why other tech CEOs were seen sucking up to Chinese President Xi Jinping during his recent U.S. vacation. Amodei missed meeting Xi, for what it’s worth, but had a private dinner with President Donald Trump late Sunday night and later this week joined other tech leaders for a luncheon hosted by Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. There — joined by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and others — the president signed a “morally binding” artificial intelligence document, which sounds promising, until you hear Trump repeatedly tell reporters that tech companies can supervise themselves. “The self-regulation is very important,” Trump said. The document signed seems to have zero enforcement or legal mechanisms, so in this context, it appears “morally binding” just means “self-policing.” 

 

It’s no mystery why the president — heavily invested in the AI industry as he acridly dismisses any notion of regulation — is cozy with the idea of AI’s alleged abilities. In his latest effort to sell the American public on the coming “golden age” of AI (of course Trump would use that phrase), on Monday the Trump administration both launched America.gov, an AI chatbot powered by Google’s Gemini and Elon Musk’s Grok, and signed an executive order to rename AI “super intelligence.”

As Gebru observed, the grift has no end. All the more reason to pour cold water on outrageous claims about flagging little enzymes in huge databases. (Let’s avoid anthropomorphizing these programs by using the verb “discover.”) The goal of Anthropic’s AI propaganda — because that’s what it is — is to get most people skimming past the headlines to only catch “AI finds new CRISPR” and think a cure for cancer and world peace are right around the corner. All we have to do is hand the keys and all our money to Silicon Valley. Whether it’s utopia or dystopia, that’s the pitch: cede control of this tech to the billionaires in charge. In that sense, blindly swallowing AI’s positive hype can be as dangerous as its alleged existential risks.

The post AI hype promises miracles. That’s as risky as doomsday talk appeared first on Salon.com.