FlashFeed

Full text

Satoru Iwata was already a legend in the gaming community while he served as Nintendo president, and that legacy has only grown since his untimely death in 2015. He led the company through the highs of the Wii and DS era, but it's his actions through the financial lows of the Wii U and 3DS generation that are perhaps best remembered these days. Game developers are now subjected to the constant threat of mass layoffs at major publishers, but Iwata took a different approach.

Iwata famously slashed his own salary by 50% in 2011, in response to poor financial results following the launch of the 3DS. Other executives at Nintendo took smaller pay cuts as well, but the company did not lay off employees even during a period of three back-to-back years of operating losses as both the 3DS and Wii U failed to gain ground.

In 2013, an investor asked Iwata why Nintendo was not restructuring in the wake of those poor financial results. "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results," Iwata argued, "employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world."

You may have seen that quote being resurfaced back in 2024, when mass layoffs were happening across the game industry, and it's sadly still relevant now, because those layoffs have never really stopped.

"Some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go," Iwata said in 2013, "but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo’s business in the long run. Our current policy is to achieve favorable results by continuously cutting unnecessary expenses and increasing business efficiency."

That policy doesn't really seem to have changed since Iwata's death, though there are caveats to keep in mind. Most notable is that Japanese labor laws make it much harder for employers to simply cut their workers, as compared with the at-will employment regulations in the US and some other Western countries.

I don't want to put Nintendo on a pedestal here – the company certainly has other issues beyond its unwillingness (or inability) to lay off employees – but Iwata's recognition of the human cost to the developers left behind when layoffs strike remains remarkable, especially as we continue to see devs cut by the hundreds and the thousands at publishers like Sony and Microsoft .

In 2009, late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said it'll take "20 years or so" for game purchases to become mostly digital.

Full text

Commons health committee also recommends end to junk food advertising on billboards and public transport

Fast food chains such as KFC should be stopped from opening near schools, and advertising for junk food on billboards and public transport should be banned to help curb obesity, MPs will say today.

The Commons health committee will also urge ministers to stop giving in to food industry lobbying and get tough to tackle a problem that costs the UK £74bn a year and causes huge illness.

Supermarkets should be forced to display fruit and vegetables prominently, for example near entrances and checkouts, to help boost sales.

All food must start carrying front-of-pack, traffic light-style labels telling consumers how healthy or unhealthy they are, which some supermarket chains already use.

The government should urgently progress its previously announced intention to compel food producers to reveal what percentage of their sales come from healthy and unhealthy products.

Ministers should “be more courageous [and start] standing up to challenge from industry”, which often seeks to delay the introduction of measures to limit bad diet.

Continue reading...

Full text

Alaska Airlines is making changes in Hawaii.

The Seattle-based carrier will add two new routes from its hub at Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL): daily service to Idaho's Boise Airport (BOI) from Dec. 17 through March 21, 2027, and Saturday-only flights to Spokane International Airport (GEG) in Washington from Dec. 19 through April 17, 2027.

Both new HNL routes will be flown with Boeing 737 Max aircraft.

At the same time, Alaska will end Hawaiian Airlines ' service to New Zealand. Flights from HNL to Auckland Airport (AKL) on an Airbus A330 will not resume in November as planned.

Hawaiian began flying the HNL-AKL route in 2013, schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows.

Alaska said the changes are "designed to align capacity with evolving travel demand."

The airline will add flights during peak periods from HNL to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas with the A330s freed up from the AKL route.

Post-merger map changes

The pace of network changes is picking up since Alaska closed its merger with Hawaiian in 2024. In June, the airline ended five routes to Mexico in favor of added capacity between the mainland U.S. and Hawaii. And, in 2025, it ended Hawaiian's flights to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Fukuoka Airport (FUK) in Japan, and Incheon Airport (ICN) near Seoul from HNL.

At the same time, Alaska debuted new intercontinental flights from its Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) base. Nonstops to Tokyo's Narita Airport (NRT) and ICN began in 2025. This summer the carrier is adding service to London's Heathrow Airport (LHR), Keflavik International Airport (KEF) in Iceland and Fiumicino Airport (FCO) near Rome .

The goal, as Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci puts it, is to build the airline into a global carrier.

"We are creating the fourth global airline in our country to compete against the Big 3," he said in January referring to American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.

Prior to the latest changes, seats on Alaska and Hawaiian from HNL were down nearly 1% this year compared to 2025, Cirium schedules show. Seats from SEA were up nearly 2%.

Alaska Atmos loyalty members can still access New Zealand on one of the carrier's Oneworld alliance partners. For example, American serves AKL from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Qantas Airways from Sydney Airport (SYD).

Related reading:

The best time to book flights for the cheapest airfare

Best airline credit cards

Flight delayed or canceled? Here's what to do next

The best credit cards to reach elite status

What are points and miles worth? TPG's monthly valuations

Summer sticker shock: Airfare up 15% as high jet fuel costs take hold

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

Full text

Researchers have extracted DNA from a 50,000-year-old tooth belonging to an African antelope, setting a record for the oldest DNA ever retrieved from sub-Saharan Africa, a new study reports.

The finding suggests that DNA preservation in sub-Saharan Africa is possible for tens of thousands of years. In most cases, the region's hot climate breaks down the molecule and prevents researchers from understanding the evolution of numerous species, including ancient human ancestors and relatives .

While some temperate regions are known for preserving ancient human DNA — for instance, the Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of Bones") in Spain preserved DNA from a mysterious relative of modern humans that lived around 400,000 years ago — the sub-Saharan African climate is less forgiving. The oldest human DNA from sub-Saharan Africa is about 18,000 years old and was discovered in bones found in a rock shelter in Tanzania . And the oldest sub-Saharan animal DNA is just 9,300 years old, from an extinct antelope in South Africa.

In the new study, researchers tested whether DNA could be successfully extracted from ancient skeletons even older than that. By analyzing more than 300 teeth from animals that lived in the past 110,000 years, they discovered that small amounts of DNA could be identified even in remains from the Late Pleistocene , the latter part of the last ice age.

Researchers extracted the DNA from the 50,000-year-old tooth of a mountain reedbuck ( Redunca fulvorufula ), a species of antelope that still lives in Africa today. (Image credit: Getty Images) In a study published online May 27 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews , researchers extracted DNA from dozens of Holocene bovid specimens younger than 11,700 years old and from four Late Pleistocene bovid specimens between 12,000 and 50,000 years old. Although many of the teeth didn't yield DNA, a handful did. The oldest DNA the researchers found came from a partial molar from an African antelope called a mountain reedbuck ( Redunca fulvorufula ) discovered in Boomplaas Cave in southern South Africa. The other old DNA samples came from three extinct long-horned buffalos ( Syncerus antiquus ) ‪—‬ two that died 21,000 years ago and one that died 12,000 years ago.

"The 50,000-year-old DNA is exciting," study first author Deon de Jager , a paleogenomics expert at the University of Copenhagen, told Live Science in an email. "But I am myself skeptical of it, for two reasons."

The reedbuck DNA is significantly older than the next-oldest DNA the researchers retrieved, from the long-horned buffalo, de Jager explained, and the reedbuck specimen was contaminated with some human DNA, which they were able to remove. These two issues mean the 50,000-year-old antelope DNA result is not ironclad. However, since the publication of the study, the researchers have also sequenced the genome of a 42,000-year-old wildebeest from Ethiopia, suggesting DNA lasts a lot longer in Africa's climate than experts once thought.

RELATED STORIES

Ancient DNA from South Africa rock shelter reveals the same human population stayed there for 9,000 years

'An extreme end of human genetic variation': Ancient humans were isolated in southern Africa for nearly 100,000 years, and their genetics are stunningly different

153,000-year-old footprints from South Africa are the oldest Homo sapiens tracks on record

"There is of course a limit to DNA preservation in Africa, but what it is, is not clear," de Jager said. "There are certainly parts of Africa where DNA will be preserved even better than from the sites we have surveyed. Deep caves with stable, low temperatures will certainly be good candidates, but also high-elevation sites where temperatures have been very low for a long time."

The Late Pleistocene teeth that de Jager and colleagues analyzed produced very low amounts of DNA, which is thought to have a half-life of about 521 years, meaning half of the DNA in a specimen disappears every 521 years until none is left. But the amount the researchers found is still useful, de Jager said.

The DNA is sufficient for identifying evolutionary lineages, de Jager added. If they can gather enough data, researchers might be able to compare gene flow and interbreeding among species and populations.

Although these results suggest that DNA analysis is possible for understanding the past 40,000 to 50,000 years of animal and human evolution in South Africa, we may never be able to extract DNA from ancient human relatives like Homo naledi , which went extinct around 240,000 years ago, or Paranthropus robustus , which died out around 1 million years ago.

"I think the chances of obtaining DNA from Homo naledi are very, very low, unfortunately," de Jager said. "One would have to get very lucky with an incredibly well-preserved skull with the petrous bone still present, which is the best bone for obtaining ancient DNA. To get DNA from something in Africa nearly 1 million years old would probably be impossible, as the conditions in Africa are just too harsh."

How much do you know about Earth's frosty past? Find out with our last ice age quiz!

Full text

The Grand Tour will return on September 4 with new hosts.

They’re James Engelsman, Thomas Holland, and Francis Bourgeois.

Fans seem split on the reboot, but many said they’ll give it a chance.

Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond signed off as host of The Grand Tour in the fall of 2024. Now, nearly two years later, the program is set to return with a trio of new hosts.

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("0f7e3106-c4d6-4db4-8135-c508879a76f8");

} else {

adpushup.triggerAd("82503191-e1d1-435a-874f-9c78a2a54a2f");

}

});

In a series of social media posts, The Grand Tour announced the show would return on September 4 on Prime Video. They added it’s the “same show,” but “new knobs.”

More: This Is Who’s Taking Over The Grand Tour After Clarkson Left The Tent

The hosts were announced earlier this year as James Engelsman and Thomas Holland of Throttle House fame. They’ll be joined by lesser-known trainspotter Francis Bourgeois, who is just 26.

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform === "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("ea4d4b5a-f8e5-4d5d-9d9a-53a3b956b6cd");

} else{

adpushup.triggerAd("44c0a4dc-e25b-4ba5-ac64-2c510461b92a");

}

});

Little is known about the new season at this point and it’s not even on Amazon’s official press calendar. In fact, the retail giant hasn’t said much about the reboot at all.

That doesn’t exactly exude confidence in the series, but the debut is still nearly a month and a half away. As a result, there’s plenty of time left for teasers and marketing.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Grand Tour (@itsthegrandtour)

That being said, fan reaction has been somewhat mixed. A number of people have chimed in on the post to say they’ll give the rebooted series a shot. Others are less optimistic and have suggested “no one cares” as it was the chemistry between Clarkson, Hammond, and May that made the original worth watching.

It’s hard to argue with that as Top Gear famously struggled after their departure and has been off the air for years. Furthermore, viewers established a relationship with the trio over decades and were invested in them.

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("bb7964e9-07de-4b06-a83e-ead35079d53c");

} else {

adpushup.triggerAd("9b1169d9-7a89-4971-a77f-1397f7588751");

}

});

That’s not the case with the new group, but Holland and Engelsman should have plenty of chemistry as they’ve been working together for years. They’re also widely known in automotive circles, so they seem like a natural fit.

With all that being said, are you interested in the new version of the show and will you be watching?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Prime Video UK & IE (@primevideouk)

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("bb7964e9-07de-4b06-a83e-ead35079d53c");

} else {

adpushup.triggerAd("9b1169d9-7a89-4971-a77f-1397f7588751");

}

});