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Ryan Coughenour from Columbia, Missouri has announced his commitment to continue his academic and athletic careers at Florida State beginning in fall 2026.
“I’m humbled, and excited to announce my commitment to Florida State University ! I’d like to thank God for blessing me with this opportunity and this talent. To my parents, teammates and coaches that each played a significant role in getting me here. To coach Ben for believing in me and seeing so much in me, I’m excited for what’s to come. GO NOLES!”
Coughenour swims for Columbia Swim Club and concluded his long course season at Summer Juniors where he finaled in all three of his events. His highest finished was 12th in the 100 breast as he swam a 1:02.99, just 0.06 off his lifetime best. He swam to best times in the 50 and 200 breaststrokes, swimming a 28.91 for 15th in the 50 and a 2:16.50 in the 200 for 25th.
Back in March, he finished his short course season at Columbia Sectionals where he swam to three best times. He finished 4th in the 200 breast in a 1:59.62, marking his first time under the 2:00 barrier. He dropped over eight seconds in the 200 breast over the course of the season as he entered fall 2024 with a lifetime best 2:07.95. He also swam a 55.79 in prelims of the 100 breast and a 4:13.07 in prelims of the 400 IM.
In addition to swimming, he enjoys to golf and fish and has his own shoe company. His grandpa played basketball at University Memphis and grandpa swam at Kansas State and was an Olympic trial qualifier in the 1950s.
Coughenour’s Best SCY Times Are:
100 breast: 55.79
200 breast: 1:59.62
The Florida State men finished 7th out of 15 teams at the 2025 ACC Championships with 639 points, finishing only 15 points behind 6th place Virginia Tech. Florida State was led by Michel Arkhangelskiy as he scored 80 individual points and was highlighted by an ACC title in the 100 back posting a 44.49.
It took a 53.12 in the 100 breast and a 1:55.80 in the 200 breast to earn a second swim at the 2025 ACC Championships. Tommaso Baravelli was the team’s highest finisher in both events at ACCs, with a 51.86 for 8th in the 100 and a 1:53.58 for 11th in the 200.
Coughenour will arrive next fall as a member of the class of 2030 along with Clay Magyar and Anthony Pineiro.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to Recruits@swimswam.com.
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A promising “two-in-one” experimental drug could tackle both type 2 diabetes and heart disease by slashing cholesterol and inflammation, potentially offering a powerful new way to protect the heart and improve metabolism.
Globally, the number of new cases of type 2 diabetes (T2D) is rising rapidly; it’s projected that by 2050 the condition will affect 1.31 billion people. Meanwhile, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Commonly, the two go together.
New research, a collaboration between Monash University in Australia and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in the Netherlands, has tested the effectiveness of an experimental drug called IC7Fc in treating mouse models of cardiovascular disease. The drug has already proven effective at improving glucose metabolism and preventing weight gain.
“Our earlier studies showed IC7Fc could help manage type 2 diabetes, a metabolic disease,” said Professor Mark Febbraio, who led the research on behalf of Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). “This new research shows it can also reduce atherosclerosis, meaning it slows the ‘clogging’ of the arteries, where fatty deposits build up and restrict blood flow to the heart.”
IC7Fc is a lab-engineered protein designed to mimic the natural signaling of a body chemical, or cytokine, called interleukin-6 (IL-6) – but only its good side. IL-6 normally helps regulate metabolism and repair tissue, but it also causes harmful inflammation. IC7Fc activates only the pathway linked to beneficial effects, such as improving metabolism and cell survival, while avoiding the “classical” pathway that drives inflammation. In short, IC7Fc aims to keep the good effects of IL-6 without the bad ones, helping cells work better under stress.
The researchers tested IC7Fc in female mice that had been genetically modified to have human-like cholesterol metabolism and to easily develop atherosclerosis, a fatty plaque build-up in arteries that’s associated with heart disease. Mice were fed a high-cholesterol “Western” diet for seven weeks. Some received IC7Fc injections twice a week; others got a statin (a cholesterol-lowering drug called atorvastatin), or both IC7Fc and a statin, or a placebo. Blood triglycerides and total cholesterol were measured, along with plaque area and composition in arteries, liver activity, especially how it produced or cleared fats and cholesterol, and inflammation markers in tissues and blood.
IC7Fc sharply lowered blood lipid levels, far more than statins did. Cholesterol dropped because of the effects of IC7Fc. Namely, it reduced new fat production in the liver (de novo lipogenesis), decreased the secretion of very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL), considered a “bad cholesterol,” and increased bile acid production, which uses up cholesterol. IC7Fc didn’t block cholesterol absorption from food, but shifted the liver’s metabolism to burn or recycle more cholesterol into bile acids. It also suppressed genes involved in fat production and the exportation of VLDL.
Mice given IC7Fc had around 84% smaller atherosclerotic lesions than controls. And the lesions were more stable, the kind less likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. The arteries of treated mice showed fewer inflammatory markers, and this anti-inflammatory effect seemed to be localized to the vessel walls, not widespread in the body. Treated mice had lower insulin levels, suggesting a secondary metabolic benefit.
The authors note some limitations to the study. Principally, it’s an animal study; human trials are needed to confirm safety and effectiveness. Additionally, the treatment period was short (seven weeks), so long-term effects on liver health and immunity are unknown.
In the previous study, IC7Fc was found to reduce appetite and body fat in obese mice. In the present study, the drug’s effects were seen in lean mice prone to high cholesterol and atherosclerosis. The researchers say that the findings taken together are very promising.
“These results suggest IC7Fc could offer a dual benefit – helping reduce obesity in some, while protecting the heart in others,” Febbraio said. “It’s an exciting step towards a treatment that targets both metabolic and cardiovascular disease.”
A worker who was trapped after part of a medieval tower collapsed in the heart of Rome, has died, according to hospital officials.
Octay Stroici was pulled free at 23:00 local time (22:00 GMT), nearly twelve hours after a section of the Torre dei Conti, on the edge of the famous Roman Forum and close to the Colosseum, gave way and trapped him beneath.
His heart stopped in the ambulance, and doctors at the hospital he was rushed to were unable to save him.
The Romanian foreign ministry said Stroici was a Romanian national, as was another worker among three others pulled from the rubble. One is said to be in a critical condition.
Stroici’s rescue was initially described as an exceptional feat by firefighters who had worked late into the night. Rescue teams used drones and rubble clearers to try to reach him, despite the risk that the fragile tower could collapse further.
He had been conscious and talking to the emergency workers throughout the rescue. His wife was also at the scene.
Stroici had been carrying out conservation work on the medieval tower which is part of the Roman Forum, one of this city’s busiest tourist sites. But this particular building had been empty and abandoned for many years.
The Rome Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the incident.
Efforts to rescue Stroici – reported to be in his 60s – were interrupted when a second section of the 29m (90ft) high tower began crumbling again, with bricks raining down, creating a huge cloud of dust.
Earlier, Rome prefect Lamberto Gianninihad described it as a “very complex situation”. Giannini said that after the initial collapse firefighters had “put up some protection” around the trapped man, so when the second collapse happened, “they obviously shielded him”.
He added that the rescue was a long operation due to having to “mitigate…the enormous risks faced by the people trying to carry out the rescue”.
One firefighter was taken to hospital with an eye problem, according to local media, but the rest were unharmed, eventually resuming their search for the man.
A police chief said there was no imminent danger that the tower will disintegrate.
“My thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to the person currently fighting for his life beneath the rubble, and to his family, for whom I sincerely hope that this tragedy finds a positive outcome,” wrote Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on X before the rescue was complete.
Another worker, 67-year-old Ottaviano, who was inside at the time of the collapse but escaped from a balcony uninjured, told the AFP news agency: “It was not safe. I just want to go home.”
Rome’s mayor and Italy’s culture minister visited the scene.
The 13th Century tower is part of the Roman Forum, a major tourist attraction in the centre of Rome, but it is separated from the main visitors’ area by a road. The streets all around have been taped off by police as a precaution.
The medieval tower was built by Pope Innocent III as a residence for his brother.
OpenAI and Amazon have signed a $38 billion deal that enables the ChatGPT maker to run its artificial intelligence systems on Amazon’s data centers in the U.S.
OpenAI will be able to power its AI tools using “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s specialized AI chips through Amazon Web Services as part of the deal announced Monday.
Amazon shares increased 4% after the announcement.
The agreement comes less than a week after OpenAI altered its partnership with its longtime backer Microsoft, which until early this year was the startup’s exclusive cloud computing provider.
California and Delaware regulators also last week allowed San Francisco-based OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, to move forward on its plan to form a new business structure to more easily raise capital and make a profit.
“The rapid advancement of AI technology has created unprecedented demand for computing power,” Amazon said in a statement Monday. It said OpenAI “will immediately start utilizing AWS compute as part of this partnership, with all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”
AI requires huge amounts of energy and computing power and OpenAI has long signaled that it needs more capacity, both to develop new AI systems and keep existing products like ChatGPT answering the questions of its hundreds of millions of users. It’s recently made more than $1 trillion worth of financial obligations in spending for AI infrastructure, including data center projects with Oracle and SoftBank and semiconductor supply deals with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.
Some of the deals have raised investor concerns about their “circular” nature, since OpenAI doesn’t make a profit and can’t yet afford to pay for the infrastructure that its cloud backers are providing on the expectations of future returns on their investments. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week dismissed doubters he says have aired “breathless concern” about the deals.
“Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow,” Altman said on a podcast where he appeared with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Amazon is already the primary cloud provider to AI startup Anthropic, an OpenAI rival that makes the Claude chatbot.
new video loaded: Protesters Demand Justice After a Mayor Is Killed in Mexico
Protesters stormed a government building after Mayor Carlos Manzo of Uruapan was shot and killed while at a Day of the Dead celebration. The outspoken mayor often denounced cartels and criticized the government’s approach to dealing with them.
MBW Explains is a series of analytical features in which we explore the context behind major music industry talking points – and suggest what might happen next. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles. MBW Explains is supported by Reservoir.
Universal Music Group’s latest (and strong) earnings results, published last week, came flanked by two groundbreaking announcements that look certain to reshape the music business in the age of AI.
One was that the world’s largest music rights company had settled its copyright infringement lawsuit against Udio, one of two generative AI music-making platforms (along with Suno) that UMG and the other two major recording companies (Sony Music and Warner Music Group) sued last year.
But the deal between UMG and Udio goes a lot further than just a resolution of their legal conflict. Starting next year, Udio will be completely transformed into a new AI music platform, one that “will be ethically trained on authorized and licensed music and will provide further revenue opportunities for artists and songwriters and UMG,” UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge said on the company’s earnings call on Thursday (October 30).
The new Udio platform will reportedly include an opt-in option for artists, and musical creations will exist within a “walled garden”: Udio-created music will exist within the Udio platform and will no longer be downloadable. That is, it will no longer contribute to the cluttering-up of streaming services with tidal waves of AI slop.
(As MBW readers may recall, Deezer recently reported that nearly a third of music uploaded to its streaming service these days is AI-generated.)
“The new subscription service will transform the user engagement experience, creating a licensed and protected environment to customize stream, share and share music responsibly on the Udio platform,” Grainge said.
UMG’s second AI-related deal is a partnership with Stability AI to develop “next-generation professional music creation tools.” Under the deal, Stability AI will work with UMG and its artists to research artists’ needs and develop AI-powered tools “to support the creative process of artists, producers and songwriters globally.”
On the earnings call, Grainge and other members of the company’s C-suite elaborated on UMG’s strategy around AI, amongst other topics. Here are three things you might have missed:
1. Music fans aren’t interested in fake AI artists
During the call, one of the more interesting tidbits came from Executive VP and Chief Digital Officer Michael Nash, who revealed some results from market research UMG carried out on US music fans and their attitudes towards AI.
“In that research, the readout was 50% of music consumers are very interested in AI in relationship to the music,” Nash told analysts on the call.
“But that’s in relationship to their music experience. The thing that ranks the lowest is artist simulation, what we would call fake artists. And you’re seeing there’s a lack of traction around that other than the occasional novelty phenomenon that may capture some headlines. That’s not what fans are interested in.”
In other words, fans want to know the music they’re listening to was created by an actual human being, expressing authentic thoughts and feelings. That must certainly come as a relief to the musical artists (and creators in other fields) who worry their life’s work will be drowned out by cheaply-made AI mimicry.
“What fans say that they’re interested in is AI application that makes their music service better, that improves discovery, that enables them to better organize playlist[s], to have a better recommendation system against their express preference,” Nash continued.
And indeed we are seeing music streaming platforms responding to that consumer demand, most notably Spotify, which announced in October that it’s developing “responsible” AI music products, in partnership with UMG and the other two major recording companies, along with indie licensing organization Merlin and France-headquartered music company Believe.
Spotify said it has already started work on a “state-of-the-art” generative AI research lab and product team. The company vowed that all the products it creates will “will put artists and songwriters first,” will give artists a choice to participate or stay out, will compensate artists fairly, and “will not replace human artistry.”
“They will give artists new ways to be creative and connect with fans,” Spotify said.
“The thing that ranks the lowest is artist simulation, what we would call fake artists… That’s not what fans are interested in.”
Michael Nash, Universal Music Group
“Imagine interacting with your favorite music through a sophisticated, highly personalized chatbot,” Grainge mused. “We envisage that exciting possibility on the horizon.”
Yet there are indeed some “novelty phenomena,” as Nash put it, where AI-generated tracks behind the guise of fake artists are racking up millions of streams on Spotify, as MBWreported earlier this year.
Yet UMG’s research – or at least that part of it the company shared on the earnings call – suggests that the market for this sort of thing is limited. (There’s also the question of just how many of those Spotify listeners even realize they’re listening to AI-generated tracks masked by a fictional “artist” persona.)
So the music industry has reason to hope that authentic, human-made music is an actual selling point that will ensure human artistry will still be alive and well on the other side of the AI revolution.
Or, as Grainge put it in what could be called UMG’s thesis statement on AI: “Our foundational belief is that artists, songwriters, music companies and technology companies, all working together, will create a healthy and thriving commercial AI ecosystem in which all of us, including fans, can flourish.”
2. TWO-THIRDS TO 75% OF VINYL SALES COME THROUGH UMG’S OWN D2C STORES
One of the more impressive (and surprising) numbers in UMG’s Q3 earnings was a 23.1% YoY jump in revenue from physical music sales, growing to €341 million (USD $398.31 million) in the quarter.
UMG attributed this particularly to initial shipments of Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl and “strength in new releases, particularly in Japan.”
That makes it sound like a one-off; after all, Japan is known for music fans that have steadfastly hung on to physical music through the digital revolution, and Taylor Swift is, well, Taylor Swift.
But on the earnings call, UMG CFO Matthew Ellis suggested that this is more than a one-off – physical sales might actually be a source of growth going forward.
“While physical revenue performance may be less predictable and have more seasonality than subscription revenue, it’s important to note that over a longer time horizon, this is a growing business that reflects increasing demand by fans to own physical products, connecting them with the artists they love,” he said.
Pressed on the issue by an apparently surprised analyst, Chief Operating Officer Boyd Muir made it clear that UMG doesn’t see music fans ditching their streaming subscriptions to build a CD collection.
Rather, physical music is becoming something new: It’s joining the merch side of the business, where buying a vinyl record is something akin to buying a T-shirt at a concert or hanging a poster of your favorite artist on your bedroom wall – a way for fans to gain something tangible that symbolizes their appreciation for and loyalty to artists.
“While physical revenue performance may be less predictable and have more seasonality than subscription revenue, it’s important to note that over a longer time horizon, this is a growing business…”
Matthew Ellis, Universal Music Group
“The reality is the CD in most of the markets in the world is very much a declining format, but we’re talking about something really quite different here,” Muir said.
“This business is morphing into how we connect the fan together with the artists through a physical product, the two most significant examples of that so far is the growth in vinyl and the collectible aspect of that.”
Muir noted that 50% of vinyl is sold to people who don’t even own record players – and he said that a growing share of physical music is coming through UMG’s direct-to-consumer channels, rather than through conventional record stores.
“We are seeing somewhere in the region of two-thirds to 75% of the total volume actually coming through our own managed stores in relation to this product. So we’re having a direct relationship with the fan,” Muir said.
Photo credit: Piotr Swat / Shutterstock.com
3. UMG is still OPTIMISTIC about the opportunity around super premium tiers and is engaged in discussions about it
Of course, UMG isn’t betting the farm on physical being the breakthrough connection to superfans that the music industry has been chasing after in recent years.
The focus remains on better monetization of music streaming, and on that front, the company is looking to China’s top streamer Tencent Music for inspiration – or, maybe more accurately, it’s hoping that streamers like Spotify and Apple Music find it an inspiration.
That’s because Tencent’s ‘Super-VIP’ subscription tier costs five times as much as a regular paid subscription, and has become a major driver of revenue growth.
In Q2, TME saw its music services revenue grow 26.4% YoY to RMB 6.85 billion ($957 million), driven by growth in Super-VIP subscribers, which hit 15 million in the quarter, up by 50% in just three quarters.
“Research clearly demonstrates that at least 20% of the subscriber base is the target market for a super-premium offer…”
Michael Nash, Universal Music Group
That helped drive average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) up 9.3% YoY to RMB 11.7 (around $1.63). In all, 12% of paying users were on the Super-VIP tier, compared to 8% a year earlier.
UMG’s leadership team was asked about the opportunity around super-premium tiers during last week’s call.
TME has “empirically demonstrated” the feasibility of a super-premium tier, Nash said on the earnings call – and in “a market regarded as challenging… to monetize music consumption.”
Nash continued: “There’s [a] clear demonstration of the opportunity. We believe industrial logic prevails here, where research clearly demonstrates that at least 20% of the subscriber base is the target market for a superpremium offer and [where] you see a focus on innovation.”
Nash also mentioned that “AI will be a significant component of the focus on innovation in terms of new digital products in the future,” connecting the super-premium opportunity to AI-enhanced experiences.
“There is a component of it that is simply about the opportunity to monetize more valuable fans,” said Nash. “And as we’ve stated before, if you look at the digital download era, the top quartile of consumers were spending three times the average. So the propensity to spend is there. And we think about this in terms of direct-to-consumer, and Matt and Boyd talked about vinyl and what that means in terms of monetizing super fandom.
He added: “There are different components to the equation, but we have a strong conviction about what we have invested directly in. With respect to superpremium tiers, we’re engaged with all of our partners, talking about the opportunity. There is a technology change that’s going to promote opportunities around innovation to introduce more sophisticated, higher value offers to consumers over time, and we’re engaged in those discussions.”
MBW Explains is a series of analytical features in which we explore the context behind major music industry talking points – and suggest what might happen next. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles. MBW Explains is supported by Reservoir.Music Business Worldwide
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, alleges the lithium-ion battery pack in the Model S caused the electronic door systems to fail.
Published On 3 Nov 20253 Nov 2025
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Electric Vehicle company Tesla has been sued over a fiery crash in the United States that killed all five occupants of a Model S, who were allegedly trapped inside because of a design flaw that prevented them from opening the sedan’s doors.
Jeffrey Bauer, 54, and Michelle Bauer, 55, of Crandon, Wisconsin, were passengers in a Model S when the car went off the road and struck a tree in Verona, Wisconsin, a suburb of Madison, on November 1, 2024. They died the next day.
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According to a complaint filed on Friday by four of the Bauers’ children, the couple’s fate was sealed because the Model S’s lithium-ion battery pack caused the electronic door systems to fail.
The children said that Tesla knew this could happen based on earlier fires, yet made a “conscious departure from known, feasible safety practices”.
Tesla, based in Austin, Texas, and led by Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday by the Reuters news agency.
The automaker has also been sued by families of two college students killed in a Cybertruck crash last November in a San Francisco suburb, after allegedly being locked in the burning vehicle because of its door handle design.
In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disclosed a probe into the possible defects on some Tesla doors, following reports that handles could fail.
The Bauer children said that Model S rear seat passengers, like Michelle Bauer, were particularly vulnerable in the event of a crash, because they would have to lift carpeting to find a metal tab allowing their escape, which is not intuitive.
A nearby homeowner told 911 that she heard screaming from within the Bauers’ vehicle, the complaint said.
“Tesla’s design choices created a highly foreseeable risk: that occupants who survived a crash would remain trapped inside a burning vehicle,” according to the complaint.
Other defendants include the estate of the car’s driver, whom the Bauer children accused of negligent driving.
On Wall Street, Tesla’s stock finished the day up 2.5 percent.
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