Some 280,000 people live in the five northernmost counties of Idaho. One of the key public officials responsible for their health is Thomas Fletcher, a retired radiologist who lives on a 160-acre farm near Sandpoint.

Fletcher grew up in Texas and moved to Idaho in 2016, looking for a place where he could live a rural life alongside likeminded conservatives. In 2022, he joined the seven-member board of health of the Panhandle Health District, the regional public health authority, and he was appointed chairman last summer.

PHD handles everything from cancer screenings to restaurant hygiene inspections, and the business of the board is often mundane, almost invisible. Then, this February, Fletcher issued a short announcement online. Parents, he wrote, should be informed of the potential harms of common childhood vaccines. It was time for the board to discuss how best to communicate those risks, rather than “withholding information contra the CDC narrative.” Fletcher invited everyone who believes in “full disclosure and transparency when providing informed consent on childhood vaccines” to attend the next monthly meeting of the board, on a Thursday afternoon.

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We all know how to find our favorite shows and blockbuster films on mainstream streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney+. But even as streaming has opened the door to millions of hours of on-demand entertainment, it can still feel like there’s nothing fresh or exciting to watch anymore.

If you agree, it’s time to check out some of the more niche streaming services available, where you can find remarkable content unlikely to be available elsewhere.

This article breaks down the best streaming services you likely aren’t watching. From cinematic masterpieces to guilty pleasures, these services offer refreshing takes on streaming that make online content binging feel new again.

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BMW provided flights from Los Angeles to Munich and Washington, plus accommodation, so Ars could be briefed on the iX3. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

MUNICH—BMW's next model launch is an important one. When the new iX3 goes on sale in Europe later this year, then here in North America in 2026, it will be the first of a new family of electric BMWs, built using an advanced new platform known as the Neue Klasse, as an homage to the original Neue Klasse of the 1960s that helped BMW define its image for decades. Some of what we know about the new iX3—including what it looks like—has to remain under wraps for another few weeks, but for now, we can say that this should be BMW's most sustainable production car to date. Here's why.

BMW has always built interesting concept cars , even if some of its ideas—like the fabric bodywork of the GINA Light Visionary Model—have never made it to production. One of my favorite BMW concepts of late was probably the i Vision Circular , which the automaker showed off in 2021—not so much for the car itself but for the construction techniques it previewed, some of which have shown up in the iX3.

That includes the heavy use of mono materials. Making the center console out of just one kind of plastic means it's far easier to recycle at the end of the car's life. BMW also significantly upped the use of secondary materials in the car: About 1,600 lbs-worth (740 kg) is recycled material, including half of all the lithium, cobalt, and nickel in the battery pack; 70 percent of the aluminum in the alloy wheels; and 80 percent of the aluminum in the wheel carriers. The frunk is made from plastic containing 30 percent recycled fishing nets.

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For years, Philip Goulder has been obsessed with a particularly captivating idea: In the hunt for an HIV cure, could children hold the answers?

Starting in the mid-2010s, the University of Oxford pediatrician and immunologist began working with scientists in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, with the aim of tracking several hundred children who had acquired HIV from their mothers, either during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding.

After putting the children on antiretroviral drugs early in their lives to control the virus, Goulder and his colleagues were keen to monitor their progress and adherence to standard antiretroviral treatment, which stops HIV from replicating. But over the following decade, something unusual happened. Five of the children stopped coming to the clinic to collect their drugs, and when the team eventually tracked them down many months later, they appeared to be in perfect health.

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Faced with mounting backlash, OpenAI removed a controversial ChatGPT feature that caused some users to unintentionally allow their private—and highly personal—chats to appear in search results.

Fast Company exposed the privacy issue on Wednesday, reporting that thousands of ChatGPT conversations were found in Google search results and likely only represented a sample of chats "visible to millions." While the indexing did not include identifying information about the ChatGPT users, some of their chats did share personal details—like highly specific descriptions of interpersonal relationships with friends and family members—perhaps making it possible to identify them, Fast Company found.

OpenAI's chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, explained on X that all users whose chats were exposed opted in to indexing their chats by clicking a box after choosing to share a chat.

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Since 2023 , Amazon has been framing Alexa+ as a monumental evolution of Amazon’s voice assistant that will make it more conversational, capable, and, for Amazon, lucrative. Amazon said in a press release on Thursday that it has given early access of the generative AI voice assistant to “millions” of people. The product isn’t publicly available yet, and some advertised features are still unavailable, but Amazon’s CEO is already considering loading the chatbot up with ads.

During an investors call yesterday, as reported by TechCrunch , Andy Jassy noted that Alexa+ started rolling out as early access to some customers in the US and that a broader rollout, including internationally, should happen later this year. An analyst on the call asked Amazon executives about Alexa+'s potential for “increasing engagement” long term.

Per a transcript of the call, Jassy responded by saying, in part:

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It's a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. July's list includes the discovery of the tomb of the first Maya king of Caracol in Belize, the fluid dynamics of tacking a sailboat, how to determine how fast blood was traveling when it stained cotton fabric, and how the structure of elephant ears could lead to more efficient indoor temperature control in future building designs, among other fun stories.

Tomb of first king of Caracol found

Credit: Caracol Archeological Project/University of Houston

Archaeologists Arlen and Diane Chase are the foremost experts on the ancient Maya city of Caracol in Belize and are helping to pioneer the use of airborne LiDAR to locate hidden structures in dense jungle, including a web of interconnected roadways and a cremation site in the center of the city's Northeast Acropolis plaza. They have been painstakingly excavating the site since the mid-1980s. Their latest discovery is the tomb of Te K'ab Chaak, Caracol's first ruler, who took the throne in 331 CE and founded a dynasty that lasted more than 460 years.

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Slowed tech progress , inflation, and global trade wars are doing a number on game console pricing this year, and the bad news keeps coming. Nintendo delayed preorders of the Switch 2 in the US and increased accessory prices, and Microsoft gave its Series S and X consoles across-the-board price hikes in May .

Today, Nintendo is back for more, increasing prices on the original Switch hardware, as well as some Amiibo, the Alarmo clock , and some Switch and Switch 2 accessories. The price increases will formally take effect on August 3.

The company says that there are currently no price increases coming for the Switch 2 console, Nintendo Online memberships, and physical and digital Switch 2 games. But it didn't take future price increases off the table, noting that "price adjustments may be necessary in the future."

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Google is unleashing its most powerful Gemini model today, but you probably won't be able to try it. After revealing Gemini 2.5 Deep Think at the I/O conference back in May , Google is making this AI available in the Gemini app. Deep Think is designed for the most complex queries, which means it uses more compute resources than other models. So it should come as no surprise that only those subscribing to Google's $250 AI Ultra plan will be able to access it.

Deep Think is based on the same foundation as Gemini 2.5 Pro, but it increases the "thinking time" with greater parallel analysis. According to Google, Deep Think explores multiple approaches to a problem, even revisiting and remixing the various hypotheses it generates. This process helps it create a higher-quality output.

Credit: Google

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