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Two Suns Players Listed in NBA’s Most Overrated Player Rankings
Jalen Green and Deandre Ayton Land in the Top Five
As the Phoenix Suns look ahead to the 2025-26 season, two players linked to the team find themselves in an unwanted spotlight. Jalen Green and Deandre Ayton were ranked among the NBA’s most overrated players, according to Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale.
New Arrival Green Under Scrutiny
Jalen Green, acquired from the Houston Rockets in the Kevin Durant trade, ranks near the top of Favale’s list. Despite averaging over 20 points per game for his career, his efficiency and playmaking have come into question.
“Green can look the part of a lead ball-handler and scoring option… but it has come on suboptimal efficiency,” Favale wrote.
According to BBall Index, Green’s shooting and playmaking metrics fall short. His assist-to-usage ratio has never exceeded the 27th percentile, and his spot-up shooting peaked in the 60th percentile before dropping to the 0th percentile last season.
The Suns are betting on a fresh start for the 23-year-old, hoping that a new system can unlock his potential.
Ayton Fails to Deliver in Second Chance
Former No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton, who now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, also landed high on Favale’s overrated list. After an underwhelming tenure in Phoenix, Ayton was moved to Portland, where expectations remained unmet.
Favale criticized Ayton’s reluctance to play physically near the rim and his lack of drawing fouls:
“Among all bigs over the past five years, he has finished no higher than the 44th percentile of rim volume and no higher than the 32nd percentile in the rate at which he draws shooting fouls,” Favale noted.
Analyst Iztok Franko ranked Ayton as the seventh-best center in the West, but emphasized there’s a strong chance Ayton could fall out of the top 15 altogether.
The Trail Blazers reportedly chose to trade Ayton to the Lakers rather than let his $35.6 million expiring contract weigh them down further.
Unwanted Spotlight for Phoenix
Whether fair or not, the Suns now carry two names among the most overrated in the league. Green has time to alter that perception. Ayton, however, may be nearing the end of his window to do so.
High-ranking Kremlin official announces upcoming meeting between Putin and Trump amid Russia-Ukraine war
A top Kremlin foreign policy aide said Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet “in the coming days.” The White House has not confirmed such a meeting and a day earlier said a summit including Ukraine’s president was on the table.
Published On 7 Aug 2025
REact: How an App, Solar Power, and Two NGOs Collaborate to Create Social Impact
In the world of innovation, headlines often focus on cutting-edge technologies, high-tech labs, or corporate breakthroughs with major economic returns. But there is another, quieter form of innovation—less headline-grabbing but profoundly transformative: one that aligns itself with social needs to improve lives.
Such is the case with REact, a free mobile application designed to estimate energy needs in vulnerable contexts and support the deployment of photovoltaic systems. It is a tool built for environments where electricity is unavailable, unreliable, or prohibitively expensive—yet crucial.
A case of social and technological innovation
REact was developed from a simple, urgent premise: in many parts of the world—due to conflict, natural disasters or lack of infrastructure—millions live without access to electricity. In these situations, solar power can be life-changing.
With this in mind, the organisations acciona.org and Action Against Hunger led the development of a digital solution to support decision-making in the field.
REact enables users to calculate energy demand through intuitive, non-technical questionnaires. The software then produces clear estimates of the required power output, the most suitable type of installation, and its necessary components.
But its innovation also lies in the process. Over 60 international humanitarian organisations contributed their on-the-ground experience to shape the tool. REact is not the product of a single vision, but the result of a collaborative effort involving NGOs, universities, foundations and renewable energy experts—an example of how social innovation transforms not just the outcomes, but the approach itself.
Accessible technology to maximise impact
REact combines user-friendliness with technical precision. Its algorithms were validated by the Spanish Solar Energy Institute, and the software itself was developed in partnership with the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
The goal was clear: to allow any humanitarian actor to design and implement solar panel and battery systems—no advanced energy expertise required.
And the benefits go beyond calculations. REact promotes the use of sustainable, autonomous systems with lower operational costs, offering an alternative to fossil fuel-powered generators.
From simulations to field applications
Although REact has been tested in over 300 simulated scenarios, its true value lies in real-world use. Two pilot projects illustrate its impact:
- Mauritania: In a remote region near the Malian border, with no access to basic services, REact helped design a photovoltaic system for a primary school. The system now powers lighting and fans, helping pupils cope with extreme heat during class hours.
- Colombia: In isolated jungle communities without healthcare facilities, the software enabled mobile medical teams to use portable solar devices. These systems have brought electricity to six communities so far, allowing healthcare workers to operate during the night—when emergencies often occur.
In both cases, REact supported not only technical deployment, but also community ownership. Local residents now manage and maintain the systems independently.
REact’s design and social impact have not gone unnoticed. The project has already received multiple awards, including a Silver Anthem at the 2024 Fast Company Awards.
As this initiative shows, when technology is built with collaboration and purpose, even the smallest solar panel can become a beacon of change.
Source:
Analyzing how investors are reacting to the potential replacement of the Fed chair favorites in the market
Analysis-Investors game out market reaction to Fed chair replacement favorites
Kenyan official confirms six fatalities in Amref plane crash in Nairobi
Six people have been killed after a light aircraft belonging to a medical charity crashed in Kenya’s capitol, Nairobi, according to a local official.
Charity Amref Flying Doctors said the Cessna plane took off from Wilson airport on Thursday afternoon and was en route to Hargeisa in Somalia when it crashed and burst into flames at a residential building in Nairobi’s Githurai area.
Kiambu County Commissioner Henry Wafula said four people on the plane were killed, including doctors, nurses and the pilot – as well as another two people on the ground, while two others were seriously injured.
Investigators have been despatched to the scene of the crash to establish its cause.
The plane lost both radio and radar contact with air traffic control just three minutes after take off, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said.
There were four crew and Amref staff on board, the charity said.
“At this time, we are cooperating fully with relevant aviation authorities and emergency response teams to establish the facts surrounding the situation,” Amref CEO Stephen Gitau said in a statement.
The Kenya Defence Forces and the National Police Service have been deployed to the scene to conduct search and recovery operations.
Patricia Kombo, an eyewitness, told the BBC that she was in a cab with her friends heading to Githurai when they heard a loud bang and a red flash ahead of them.
“Before I could take my phone to record the flash was gone and smoke was billowing. We then heard people screaming and running and so we ended our trip.
“We then discovered it was a plane crash and saw the sunken hole the crash had created in the ground,” she said.
In a separate incident, a train and a bus collided at a railway crossing near Naivasha town, central Kenya, killing at least four people, according to Reuters news agency citing a Red Cross worker.
The Kenya Pipeline Company, whose bus was involved in the incident, said it was carrying staff finishing their morning shift at one of its training centres and that all injured staff had been taken to hospital for treatment.
New Yorker in her mid-twenties gains 40,000 TikTok followers while exploring all of the city’s museums
Museums throughout New York City were just reopening in the wake of the COVID pandemic when Jane August launched what seemed like a straightforward plan: She would travel to every single museum in the city, producing a short video log of each one. She figured it would take three years at most.
But with 136 museums documented since 2021, she still has about 64 to go by her estimation. And with new museums opening and some old ones changing so dramatically that they deserve a revisit, the 26-year-old now says she’s realistically aiming to complete the project before she’s 30.
“At first, I started the project for myself to safely get out of my house and experience culture in the city again,” said August, who grew up in Arizona and has lived in New York for nine years. She said she wasn’t a big museum person before starting the project, and had only been to around seven at the time.
But as she began, the plan quickly evolved.
“I decided TikTok would be a cool way to document this so my friends could keep up with my journey and maybe discover something new,” August said. Her audience has since far expanded with about 40,000 followers across social platforms.
Museums big and small, Manhattan and beyond
Visiting its museums has sparked a new appreciation for New York City, she said, as well as for the sheer breadth of what’s on offer, particularly for those willing to explore smaller museums and those in the boroughs beyond Manhattan.
And yes, she has favorites.
“I love Poster House. It’s the first poster museum in the country, has great programming and is free on Fridays,” she says of the largely unsung museum at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, which features graphic design and advertising posters ranging from Art Nouveau to political propaganda.
Others on her list of favorites include the Tenement Museum in lower Manhattan and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, as well as three Brooklyn museums: the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, the New York Sign Museum and the Red Hook Pinball Museum. She also has a soft spot for The Paley Center for Media NYC in midtown Manhattan.
“They have archives with every TV show you could possibly think of. It’s amazing,” she said of The Paley Center.
Staten Island offerings are worth the ferry ride
As for the city’s smallest borough, the ferry ride to Staten Island (free, with views of the Statue of Liberty along the way) is well worth the trip for museum-goers, she said.
The borough features the Newhouse Center of Contemporary Art, as well as the Alice Austen House, a Victorian Gothic house important to LGBTQ+ history. It was the home of one of the country’s earliest and most prolific female photographers, famous for documenting the city’s immigrant communities.
“You wouldn’t imagine that Staten Island had one of the gayest museums in New York, dedicated to a queer photographer, but it does,” August said.
Staten Island is also home to the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art and the Chinese Scholar’s Garden, which claims to be one of only two authentic classical outdoor Chinese gardens in the United States.
“It’s so peaceful and quiet, and I love riding the ferry,” August said.
Taking advantage of free days and slow hours
While museums can be expensive, she said she makes good use of museum passes at her local library, and that many museums have days or times when they are free.
And because her “day jobs” tend to be at night — she works at different venues in ticketing and production, and also bartends — she’s able to visit museums in the middle of weekdays, when they tend to be less crowded.
August recently became a licensed New York City tour guide, and she says it’s given her a renewed appreciation both of the city and its visitors.
She’s also seen a few trends take hold, like the rise in museum programming aimed at younger audiences and the trend away from chronological exhibits, which she says make return visits less enticing.
“So many of us are desperate for third spaces,” she said, referring to a place distinct from both home and work where people can relax or socialize. “For a lot of us, we have a hunger to come back and visit again, especially when it’s free.”
Although big museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art can certainly be crowded, August says New York isn’t facing nearly the level of overcrowding as in European cities like Paris.
And at peak times and seasons, like summer, it’s nice to know there are plenty of smaller museums to visit.
Seeing the whole city
“I think this is especially important for the lesser-known museums that don’t often get press or social media features,” she said. “There are some small museums that get a huge bump in attendance and press after I have posted my videos so it’s exciting to be able to play a small role in that success.”
As for her motivation to continue the project, she said “it boils down to the people. I get to connect with fascinating and passionate people who are making these museums what they are and I get to connect with enthusiasts who want to find something fun to do with their weekend.”
For anyone interested in giving something like this a go for themselves, she says it takes a lot of endurance.
“Be prepared to go to corners of the city you never considered — I’m talking edges of the Bronx and middle of Staten Island,” she said. “But if you’re up for the challenge, you’ll probably gain a lot of insight on not just the museums and their content, but also the communities they serve.”
France Battles to Control Largest Blaze in Decades
new video loaded: France Struggles to Contain Largest Fire in Decades
By Monika Cvorak•
The blaze, which has grown to nearly 40,000 acres, was the country’s biggest since 1949, the civil defense chief said.
Recent episodes in News Clips: Europe
SM Entertainment’s Second Quarter Revenue in 2025 Increases by 19% to $218 Million; CEO Teases China Expansion Following Tencent Partnership
South Korean entertainment giant SM Entertainment reported a 19.3% YoY jump in consolidated revenue for the second quarter of 2025, driven by surging album sales and strong merchandise performance.
The agency, home to K-pop acts such as RIIZE, NCT 127, aespa, and NCT DREAM, booked 302.9 billion South Korean won (approx. USD $218 million) in Q2 consolidated revenue, up from 253.9 billion won ($183m) a year earlier, according to its quarterly earnings report published Wednesday (August 6).
Of the total, revenue at parent company SM Entertainment surged 26.5% YoY to 220.3 billion won ($159m), driven primarily by strong growth in album and digital music revenue, which jumped 37.9% YoY to 99.0 billion won ($71m).
The surge in album revenue came as “new album sales volume increased by over 1.9 million copies YoY,” SM Entertainment CFO Jeongmin Jang told analysts during an earnings call.
RIIZE’s debut full album ODYSSEY led sales with 1.93 million copies, followed by NCT WISH‘s second mini album poppop with 1.34 million copies and aespa’s single Dirty Work with 900,000 units sold. Additional releases from Mark and Doyoung brought total new release sales to 5.79 million copies for Q2.
SM Entertainment CEO Cheol-hyuk Jang said: “These achievements across our artist lineup continue to deepen our IP portfolio and enrich global fan experiences with even greater diversity.”
Concert revenue in Q2 slipped 1.9% YoY to 33.6 billion won ($24.0m), with major performances including TVXQ!‘s three Tokyo Dome concerts celebrating their 20th anniversary in Japan, NCT 127‘s six shows across Japan and Macau, and SMTOWN 30th Anniversary concerts in London, LA, and Mexico City.
MD/licensing revenue surged 39.6% YoY to 63.9 billion won ($46m), boosted by strong concert merchandise sales and successful pop-up events including NCT WISH’s exhibition pop-up and RIIZE’s character pop-up.
Operating profit jumped 92.4% YoY to 47.6 billion won ($34m), while net profit nearly tripled to 30.9 billion won ($22m) from 8.4 billion won ($6m).
Meanwhile, revenue from SM’s major subsidiaries climbed 25.4% YoY to 141.5 billion won ($102m). SM Entertainment Japan posted strong growth of 38.6% YoY to 26.0 billion won ($19m) driven by expanded concert activity, while SM Brand Marketing rose 38.2% to 19.5 billion won ($14m) on increased album and merchandise sales.
However, SM C&C continued its decline, falling 24.2% YoY to 21.1 billion won ($15m) due to reduced advertising revenue, while KEYEAST plunged 81.7% YoY to 3.0 billion won ($2m) amid fewer drama broadcasts.
The newly consolidated superfan app operator DearU contributed 20.2 billion won ($14m) in Q2 revenue following its acquisition.
Looking ahead, SM has a packed release schedule for the remainder of 2025. July releases included SUPER JUNIOR‘s 12th full album marking their 20th anniversary and NCT DREAM’s fifth album Go Back To The Future. Q3 will see new mini albums from aespa and NCT WISH, while Q4 releases include a Taeyeon full album, NCT DREAM mini album, WayV mini album, Hearts2Hearts mini album, and a RIIZE single.
The company’s touring lineup for H2 2025 features RIIZE’s first solo tour RIIZING LOUD with 20 shows across Asia, NCT DREAM‘s THE DREAM SHOW 4, WayV’s upcoming tour, and aespa’s third concert tour 2025 SYNK: aeXIS LINE.
In his CEO message following the release of the Q2 results, Jang highlighted SM’s partnership with Tencent Music Entertainment. In March, SM rival HYBE agreed to sell its entire 9.38% stake in SM to Tencent Music, which acquired 2.21 million shares for 243.35 billion won ($176m).
Jang said: “Through this alliance, we have established a practical and wide-ranging partnership that extends beyond music distribution to include content planning, fan data analysis, and concert execution in the China market.”
Tencent has over 550 million monthly active users across its platforms including QQ Music, Kugou, and Kuwo.
“In the long term, we aim to create a comprehensive idol success model that combines SM Entertainment’s global production capabilities with Tencent Music Entertainment’s local marketing and distribution power — bridging global and local strengths.”
Cheol-hyuk Jang, SM Entertainment
The CEO added: “In the long term, we aim to create a comprehensive idol success model that combines SM Entertainment’s global production capabilities with Tencent Music Entertainment’s local marketing and distribution power — bridging global and local strengths.”
Through the Tencent partnership, Jang said: “SM has taken a preemptive step in securing a robust infrastructure for content production, marketing, and distribution within China. This is expected to accelerate the localization of our new IPs and open up tangible monetization opportunities based on China’s fandom ecosystem.”
Music Business Worldwide
Report: Israeli Mass Surveillance of Palestinians Utilizes Microsoft Cloud Technology | Israel-Palestine Conflict News
Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence unit stored vast volumes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft’s cloud servers, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call.
The surveillance system, operational since 2022, was built by Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s secretive intelligence branch. It enables the unit to collect and retain recordings of millions of daily phone calls from Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The revelations initially reported on Wednesday stem from leaked Microsoft documents and testimonies from 11 sources, including from Israeli military intelligence and the company.
According to the leaks, a large amount of the data appeared to be stored on Microsoft’s Azure servers located in the Netherlands and Ireland, the Guardian reported.
Three sources from Unit 8200 said that the cloud-based system helped guide deadly air strikes and shaped operations across the occupied Palestinian territories.
Microsoft said that CEO Satya Nadella, who met with Unit 8200’s commander Yossi Sariel in 2021, was unaware of the nature of the data to be stored. The company has said an internal review found “no evidence to date” that Azure or its artificial intelligence (AI) tools were “used to target or harm people”.
The revelations come after the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, issued a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in its occupation and war on Gaza.
The report noted that Microsoft, which has operated in Israel since 1991, has built its largest hub outside the US in Israel and began integrating its technologies across the country’s military, police, prisons, schools, and settlements.
Since 2003, the company has deepened ties with Israeli defence, acquiring surveillance and cybersecurity start-ups and embedding its systems in military operations. In 2024, an Israeli colonel called cloud technologies such as those offered by Microsoft “a weapon in every sense”.
The Guardian reported that internal records at Microsoft showed that Nadella offered support for Sariel’s aim to move large volumes of military intelligence into the cloud.
A Microsoft statement cited by the Guardian said it “is not accurate” to say he provided his personal support for the project.
Microsoft engineers later worked closely with Israeli intelligence to embed security features within Azure, enabling the transfer of up to 70 percent of Unit 8200’s sensitive data to the platform.
While Israeli officials claim the technology helps thwart attacks, Unit 8200 sources said the system collects communications indiscriminately, which are often used to detain or blackmail Palestinians. “When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason … that’s where they find the excuse,” one source was cited as saying.
Some sources alleged the stored data had been used to justify detentions and even killings.
The system’s expansion coincided with a broader shift in Israeli surveillance, moving from targeted tracking to bulk monitoring of the Palestinian population. One AI-driven tool reportedly assigns risk scores to text messages based on certain trigger words, including discussions of weapons or martyrdom.
Sariel, who resigned in 2024 after Israel’s intelligence failure on October 7, 2023, had long championed cloud-based surveillance.
As Israel’s war on Gaza continues, with more than 61,250 Palestinians killed, including 18,000 children, the surveillance programme remains active. Sources said the existing data, combined with AI tools, continues to be used in military operations.
Microsoft claimed it had “no information” about the specific data stored by Unit 8200.