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Manchester’s integrated care board offers the health service a domestic alternative to the US firm, says Dr Devan Moodley

Regarding Peter Geoghegan’s article ( I investigated Palantir’s foothold in the British state – and what I found should worry us all, 15 July ), the nine years that Greater Manchester’s health system has spent without Palantir is a result not of caution but bold conviction.

Greater Manchester’s integrated care board remains the only one in England to decline the Palantir-built federated data platform, having concluded that its own homegrown data capability was stronger. It built that capability with British universities, NHS clinicians and domestic technology firms.

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Well, it turns out that Bethesda's executive producer Todd Howard and I have at least two things in common—we're both roughly 5 feet 6 inches tall, and we're both chronic Reddit lurkers. Admittedly, I only have IMDB to go by when it comes to the height thing. Maybe it's wrong! But the Reddit thing is 100% true, because he went ahead and said it himself.

Howard gave the folks of r/Games a surprise jumpscare last week, making only his second public comment on the site in the last three years. It was, unsurprisingly, under a post sharing Bethesda essentially vomiting out every single thing it's currently working on , which came shortly after the announcement of parent owner Xbox's catastrophic layoffs .

"Hey Reddit. I'm a professional lurker and read your comments all the time. Many here do and we deeply appreciate the passion for our work," Howard wrote. "I know I don't really post, and we're usually very quiet. Today's info was an attempt at changing that and letting everyone know what we've been working on the past several years, and a look at what's coming. So know we're constantly listening and keep telling us how to be even better."

Howard then goes on to say: "You'd be surprised how many great ideas I get from Reddit. So upvote and we'll do it. Maybe." Well, huh. I do have to wonder if Howard is taking screenshots of comments and projecting them onto the wall during meetings, or simply jotting down little comments he reads here and there. I wonder what ideas Reddit is churning out that were so smart Howard felt the need to take note of them in the first place.

More importantly, what subreddits is our man lurking in? Does he just cycle through all the Bethesda-relevant ones? Is he sneaking looks at what people think of the competition? Is he also getting fed posts for subreddits he's never even heard of, like r/GirlDinnerDiaries? Seriously, why am I getting so many r/GirlDinnerDiaries posts in my feed?

Whatever he's getting up to over there—and whatever calculated business decision was behind him cropping up in the comments of a random Reddit post to begin with—is a secret that will remain between him and his Google Chrome history, I suppose.

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That's two last-second launch aborts in a row for SpaceX.

One of the company's Falcon 9 rockets tried to loft 24 Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California this morning (July 20), but the attempt was aborted just as the first-stage engines started firing up.

Something similar happened on Thursday afternoon (July 16), when SpaceX attempted to launch the 13th test flight of its Starship megarocket.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket tries to launch 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base on July 20, 2026. The launch aborted at the last second. (Image credit: SpaceX) The two events likely have little in common other than a proximity in time. They involved two very different vehicles, after all: The workhorse Falcon 9 is the most reliable and active rocket on the planet; it has already launched 84 times this year, with zero failures.

Starship, on the other hand, remains in the development-and-testing phase. SpaceX has high hopes for the giant vehicle, which combines full reusability with unprecedented brawn. (It's the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built.)

The two vehicles are also powered by different engines. The Falcon 9's first stage employs nine Merlin 1Ds, whereas Starship's Super Heavy booster uses 33 next-gen Raptors.

SpaceX decided to swap out two of those Raptors ahead of the next Flight 13 launch attempt, which is scheduled for Thursday afternoon (July 23).

The Vandenberg Starlink launch, meanwhile, is back on the docket for Tuesday morning (July 21). It's scheduled to lift off during a nearly four-hour window that opens at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT; 7 a.m. local California time), according to a SpaceX mission description .

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The city of Kyoto has over 1,600 Buddhist temples. While this is a very large number, it often feels like this isn’t enough. Famous sites such as Kinkaku-ji , Kiyomizu-dera , and Ryōan-ji are often seen over the shoulders of hundreds of other visitors, who tend to be cropped out of social media posts. In this environment, it may seem difficult to find a profound experience with this ancient, sacred city. Still, amongst this chaos, there is at least one temple that has done its best to limit rather than encourage visitation.

Saihō-ji is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple on the western edge of Kyoto, below the slopes of Arashiyama. The name means “Temple of the West Fragrance” and is dedicated to Amitabha, the Buddha of the Western Pure Land. The temple is also known by another name: Kokedera, the Moss Temple. The garden is drenched in moss, in over 120 varieties. The moss arrived as something of a happy accident during the Meiji era, as the temple lacked funds to maintain the more tidy gardens of the past.

Famed for its moss garden, Kokedera was once one of the most popular and visited temples in Kyoto. However, in 1977, the temple made the decision to end walk-up visits. One would have to reserve their place in advance by postcard. Additionally, one would have to engage in one of the temple’s spiritual activities. For most guests, this takes the form of copying a sutra. The words are faintly written on the paper, so visitors who don’t know Japanese can simply trace the words.

Once the sutra is complete, you may choose to take it home, or you may donate it to the temple for ritual use. Only then can you enter the beautiful moss garden. The many shades of moss are fascinating when viewed up close as tiny forests, and breathtaking in their totality, making the entire forest look like one great, living entity. It is no wonder that this garden is a representation of the Buddhist Pure Land.

As entry has become more exclusive, Kokedera has lost some of its fame. It is generally left off of online itineraries, possibly due to the inconvenience of scheduling a visit. However, for those few who make the trip, it is one of the most enriching experiences they will have in Japan. Whether calmed by the act of copying the sutra, the lovely moss landscape, or a shared reverence for the moment, visitors tend to keep their voices down and quietly enjoy the garden. It is the type of encounter that will leave you with a deep sense of wonder for nature, and perhaps, a little more faith in humanity.

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For three seasons, The Toys That Made Us has uncovered the hidden histories of the most beloved playthings in modern history, from Barbie to Lego to Power Rangers . Now, the behind-the-scenes artwork showcased on the series is going to be collected in a handsome book, The Art of The Toys That Made Us , for which Toys That Made Us producer Nacelle and publisher Oni Press are launching a Kickstarter. The Kickstarter will also include Nacelleverse: Year Zero , the collected edition of Nacelle's all-new comics featuring tales of several cult-classic toy lines. Collider is proud to exclusively reveal the all-new wraparound cover for Nacelleverse: Year Zero , by Canadian comic artist Karl Kerschl ( Gotham Academy ).

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After the game was unceremoniously canceled last year , the opening cinematic of Kingdom Hearts : Missing-Link has apparently leaked online. The video contains several hallmarks of the unreleased project and plenty of Tetsuya Nomura-isms besides, lending credence to its legitimacy and providing some hints about what we might see in Kingdom Hearts 4 .

Versions of the short film made their way around the information superhighway before a full upload landed on YouTube. The first half contains a massive battle between keyblade-wielders in space suits and a huge Heartless. Eventually, several of these magical astronauts find themselves in Quadratum, a realm based on our real world.

Then we jump to scientists walking around the halls of a facility of some sort, going in and out of various rooms. Narration makes mention of, "The era missing from history's cycle," and that it's "the third generation of the founded city that faced the true nature of this phenomenon," as someone urgently goes to hand over an envelope in a grand hall of some kind.

The "founded city" is Scala ad Caelum, the world from which all others flow. It's a glorious, paradise-like structure composed of white stone where it's perpetually sunny. So far, this all lines up with what we know about Missing-Link, as it would've been set between Union X and Dark Road and depicted what's known as the "blank era."

Perspective jumps to what appears to be a young Sigurd, a character in Union X who looks like he's got an unhealthy obsession with BloodBorne. The final scene shows a young version of him in a huge city at night - it's perpetually daytime in Scale ad Caelum, which means this is probably Daybreak Town, the precursor to the magical metropolis that gets leveled in the Keyblade War.

There's no way of truly verifying the legitimacy of this footage, but there are plenty of signs it's the real deal. It's polished, flows how you'd expect an introductory cutscene to, and the narrative elements line up with existing knowledge of Missing-Link. Members of the Kingdom Hearts community who took part in beta testing for the spin-off have pointed out the aesthetic doesn't line up with what they saw.

"The ML style was more steampunk. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a keyblade mod on something else or some fan art," says a commenter on Reddit. Others are lowkey stunned at what they're seeing. "Why does it look like Pacific Rim but with Keyblades," a top Reddit comment asks.

One thing that does jump out at me here is how large-scale this feels for a mobile release. Kingdom Hearts spin-offs don't tend to feel much like their mainline, triple-A counterparts.

Which leads me to agree with the prevailing theory that this is actually something intended for Kingdom Hearts 4. Missing-Link was going to tee up the new installment, and in the wake of Square Enix ending development on it, parts are probably being reworked for appearances elsewhere.

There's also a non-zero chance this is all part of something for the next Kingdom Hearts collection. Wherever this is from, I can say one thing with confidence: the lore isn't getting any easier to explain.

Kingdom Hearts 4 updates could be coming soon as series "deep dive" is confirmed for D23, 2 months after Square Enix's surprise new trailer