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This story first appeared in Adam’s Biotech Scorecard, a subscriber-only newsletter. STAT+ subscribers can sign up here to get it delivered to their inbox.

Northwest Biotherapeutics, a public biotech company developing a treatment for brain cancer, submitted a marketing application to U.K. regulators in late December 2023. The review was supposed to take 150 days, under an expedited regulatory pathway for drugs that address serious unmet medical needs.

As you’re reading this newsletter, two years, six months, and 18 days have elapsed without an approval decision. Why the extra-long delay? Regulators at the U.K’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, won’t comment, telling anyone who inquires, including me, that it’s up to Northwest Bio to provide an update on its brain cancer treatment, called DCVax.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

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Analyst data shows global PC market contracted 3.6% during Q2 2026

AI's insatiable demand for memory and other chips is rising costs across the board

Prices could continue to rise as the market continues to shrink, analysts predict

All the latest data points to a worsening situation for PC makers in the coming years, with global PC shipments falling 4.9% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026 per IDC data , or down 3.6% per Canalys .

While the two differ on total volumes due to tracking differences, both firms agree the market is shrinking as a result of soaring memory prices and other cost increases.

Market researchers now broadly agree that AI-driven demand for memory chips could create shortages that continue for months, or even years, impacting the consumer device end of the market as data centers bid to pay over the odds for chips.

Global PC market starts to shrink

Lenovo, HP and Dell all saw global shipment volumes drop by 2.1% to 9% during the most recent three-month period, with Asus barely tipping into the positives at 0.2-0.9% up. Apple was the only major manufacturer to see any considerable shipment increases, tracked at 10.1-15.9% depending on the source.

IDC credited its success to the launch of the MacBook Neo, however even Apple was forced to raise prices pretty considerably across the board after failing to absorb component cost increases with previous pricing. The MacBook Neo was hit with a $100 increase (a 14-17% increase), with MacBook Pro buyers forced to pay an additional $300 (up 18%).

"After the pull-forward activity seen in the first half of the year, signals are now pointing to a period of delayed demand as the true impact of the supply crunch sinks in,” said Omdia Research Director Ishan Dutt wrote.

"Given worsening macro conditions and a memory shortage that isn’t expected to ease until early 2028, we don’t expect another round of inventory pull-forward, which points to a sharp slowdown in growth rates in the second half of 2026," IDC research director for consumer devices Jitesh Ubrani added.

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#1 on the nonfiction Indie Bestseller list this week is Communion by bell hooks, which shares a title with the new JD Vance book. That’s no accident: a grassroots campaign encouraged readers to pick up the bell hooks title, and it worked. It got to the #12 bestseller spot in The New York Times and was the #1 bestseller on Bookshop.org. The publisher said sales on the title are up 1,000% since last year.

This list continues to lack diversity on many levels, including being disproportionately by white authors. Some Independent Press Bestsellers you should know about are The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian.

To get these numbers, we look at The New York Times , both Combined Print & E-Book Fiction and Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction lists; Amazon Charts, both Fiction and Nonfiction; Publishers Weekly ; USA Today ; and Indie Bestsellers, Fiction and Nonfiction, both Paperback and Hardcover.

Books On All Five Bestseller Lists:

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Whistler by Ann Patchett

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Books On Four Bestseller Lists:

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir ( Publishers Weekly, USA Today, NYT, Indie Bestsellers)

The Deal by Elle Kennedy ( Publishers Weekly, NYT, Amazon, Indie Bestsellers)

The Divorce by Freida McFadden ( Publishers Weekly, USA Today, NYT, Amazon)

Books On Three Bestseller Lists:

Strangers by Belle Burden (NYT, Amazon, Indie Bestsellers)

The Land and Its People by David Sedaris (NYT, Amazon, Indie Bestsellers)

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books .

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For decades, cities have been designed around "gray infrastructure." Roads move people. Bridges connect communities. Water systems protect public health. These systems are governed by engineering standards because society recognizes that safety cannot depend on good intentions alone.

Urban nature deserves the same recognition.

In June, a heat wave gripped Europe, breaking temperature records across the continent. In France, officials reported over 2,000 excess deaths . In the U.K., hospitals declared critical incidents and machinery and IT systems failed. In the U.S., a heat dome over the Midwest and East Coast disrupted Fourth of July celebrations, with at least 25 heat-related deaths over Independence Day weekend.

Cities are being tested by a warming climate. Yet one of our most effective forms of climate infrastructure is being lost — not because it does not work but because we still do not treat it as infrastructure.

My view is simple: Urban nature ‪—‬ including street trees, parks, wetlands and other urban green spaces ‪—‬ should be categorized and managed as essential infrastructure , with minimum standards for its protection, quality and long-term maintenance. Just as we regulate roads, bridges and drinking water, we need standards that ensure all urban residents benefit from healthy and thriving urban nature. Without such standards, cities will become hotter, less resilient and increasingly unequal as climate change accelerates.

A cafe in the city of Nice during the heat wave that saw temperatures in France reach a record-breaking average of 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit (36.9 degrees Celsius). (Image credit: Valery Hache/Getty Images) Scientific research shows that urban trees and green spaces cool cities during heat waves, reduce flooding by absorbing stormwater, improve air quality, store carbon, support biodiversity, and improve both physical and mental health. During extreme heat, neighborhoods with mature tree canopies can be several degrees cooler than nearby streets dominated by concrete and asphalt. Those few degrees can mean the difference between manageable discomfort and dangerous heat exposure, particularly for older adults, children and people with existing health conditions.

But while the science is strong, our governance is not.

Cities enthusiastically announce ambitious tree-planting campaigns, biodiversity strategies and new greening targets. These initiatives are valuable, but they often focus on what is easy to count rather than what truly matters. Planting a tree is not the same as growing a healthy urban forest. Creating a park does not guarantee biodiversity. A green roof delivers little value if it fails during drought.

The real measure of success is whether urban nature continues providing benefits decades after trees are planted and established.

This is where cities are still falling short.

That is not simply an environmental issue. It is a public health issue, a climate adaptation issue, and an issue of social equity.

Unlike buildings or transport systems, urban nature rarely operates under consistent minimum standards. Many cities have no requirements for minimum tree canopy cover, adequate rooting space, soil quality, biodiversity targets, long-term maintenance or even whether newly planted trees survive. As a result, access to nature depends heavily on where people live. Wealthier neighborhoods often enjoy mature tree canopy and high-quality parks, while disadvantaged communities experience hotter streets, fewer green spaces and greater exposure to climate risks.

That is not simply an environmental issue. It is a public health issue, a climate adaptation issue, and an issue of social equity.

The solution is not simply to plant more trees. It is to establish urban nature standards that recognize nature as essential infrastructure.

These standards would not prescribe the same solution for every city. Instead, they would establish minimum expectations based on scientific evidence. They could include targets for accessible green space, minimum tree canopy cover, sufficient soil volume for healthy tree growth, biodiversity outcomes, long-term maintenance funding and routine monitoring to ensure that urban nature continues delivering benefits to communities.

The Bosco Verticale in Milan house around 800 trees and 20,000 plants. City officials have been expanding the green infrastructure with multiple high impact projects to address climate change. (Image credit: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images) Importantly, these standards should focus on outcomes rather than simple planting targets. Counting how many trees are planted tells us little about whether cities are becoming more resilient. Measuring survival, canopy development, ecosystem health and equitable access provides a much better picture of whether investments in urban nature are actually returning dividends.

Some critics argue that cities cannot afford stronger standards for urban nature. Municipal budgets are already stretched by housing, transport and aging infrastructure. But this argument overlooks a fundamental reality: We already spend enormous sums responding to the consequences of extreme heat, flooding, poor air quality and declining public health. Healthy urban ecosystems help reduce these costs while delivering multiple benefits simultaneously.

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As climate change accelerates, the distinction between gray and green infrastructure becomes increasingly blurred. Trees cool buildings and reduce energy demand. Wetlands decrease flood damage. Parks improve public health and strengthen communities. These are not optional amenities. They are functioning components of urban infrastructure that deserve the same level of planning, investment and accountability as any engineered system.

Building codes transformed the safety of our cities because they established minimum standards that every development had to meet. Climate resilience now demands a similar transformation for urban nature.

The next generation of resilient cities will not be defined simply by how many trees they plant but by the standards they adopt to protect, restore and sustain the living infrastructure urban life depends on.

The real question is not whether cities can afford to invest in urban nature; it is whether they can afford not to.

Opinion on Live Science gives you insight on the most important issues in science that affect you and the world around you today, written by experts and leading scientists in their field.

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Obsidian Entertainment has cancelled an Avowed sequel and is now reportedly developing a new Fallout game

The game is helmed by Fallout: New Vegas lead designer and project director Joshua Sawyer

This comes as part of Microsoft's major Xbox "reset"

Obsidian Entertainment is reportedly working on a new Fallout game after scrapping plans for an Avowed sequel amid Xbox's restructuring strategy.

That's according to Bloomberg , which reports that the Avowed sequel and other unannounced projects were the studio's priority, but will now focus on a new Fallout game helmed by Fallout: New Vegas lead designer and project director Joshua Sawyer, in collaboration with Bethesda.

Sawyer was working on a different role-playing game (RPG) similar to Fallout , but it's unclear which one.

While Avowed 2 has been cancelled, a small team will continue working on the game in case the project is revived in the future; for now, Fallout is the new priority.

The report comes as part of Microsoft's major Xbox "reset," which recently saw thousands of layoffs, including 1,600 immediate cuts . It's said that Avowed 2 was to be announced within the next year, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma didn't see it fitting into the company's new strategy.

Bloomberg said these layoffs included a quarter of Obsidian, with GameFile reporting that a WARN notice in California indicated it was 52 workers in total, including 43 in Obsidian's California offices and nine in-state remote workers.

Obsidian, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018, released three games in 2025, including Avowed , The Outer Worlds 2 , and Grounded 2 . Bloomberg confirmed that the studio will continue developing content for the latter two titles.