Category: 4. Technology

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Earlier this year, the 2026 Pokémon Championship Series unveiled a suite of changes that included an adjustment to Swiss tournament rounds, end-of-round procedures in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and the debut of Pokémon UNITE’s Regional Leagues. In the latest update to the Championship Series website, you’ll find details on the items below, as well as an updated event calendar and new tournament rules and event policies for the 2026 season!

• Pokémon UNITE Championship Series Regional League Update

• Pokémon Champions Comes to the Video Game Championships (VGC)

• Pokémon VGC Regulations

• Pokémon VGC Grand Challenges Continue

• Pokémon GO Battle League Leaderboard Challenges

• Pokémon GO Championship Series Age of Eligibility

• Pokémon GO Limited Metas

• Updated Hardware Environments for Live Events

• Swiss Dynamic Seating

• Pokémon TCG Open Deck Lists

We look forward to seeing you compete in the 2026 Pokémon Championship Series, Trainers!

The latest Pokémon Trading Card Game expansion, Mega Evolution, arrives September 26, 2025, but you can visit your local game store to play with it early! Starting September 13, 2025, select retailers will begin selling the Mega Evolution Build & Battle Box, giving fans a chance to have a Prerelease battle and experience the latest expansion before its official release date. To find a Prerelease event near you, be sure to use the Play! Locator.

The Prerelease format allows players to compete using a 40-card deck with four Prize cards set aside at the start of play, as opposed to a 60-card deck with six Prize cards. This format is perfect for introducing new players to the exciting world of the Pokémon TCG with quick, fun games, and it also gives seasoned players a window into all that Mega Evolution has to offer. Due to the limited card pool and the variance of cards that can be acquired in a Build & Battle Box, Prerelease events are also a great opportunity to flex your creative deck-building muscles.

Each Build & Battle Box includes four Mega Evolution booster packs and a 40-card ready-to-play deck featuring key cards from current and prior sets as well as one of four unique foil promo cards. Depending on which promo card you get, you could be playing with the marvelous Meganium, the sniping Inteleon, the brainy Alakazam, or the lunar cycling Lunatone.

Look familiar? This Meganium has the same Ability as the Meganium card released in the Neo Genesis expansion—Wild Growth. This Ability is set to be just as impactful now as it was then, as it makes it so that each Basic Energy in play provides . For example, if you have two Basic Energy attached to Meganium, you can use its Solar Beam attack for just two Energy attachments! Be on the lookout to add Pokémon with in their attack costs to your Prerelease deck, as Meganium’s Wild Growth makes every Pokémon just that bit more threatening.

This card’s perfect for bringing down the whole Prerelease operation. Well, you might not want to do that, but you’ll definitely want to KO your opponent’s Pokémon with Inteleon’s Bring Down attack. For just one , you can instantly KO the Pokémon with the least HP remaining and ignore the necessary damage counters altogether. Be careful, though—Bring Down can KO your own Pokémon as well, so Inteleon’s Water Shot is a strong backup attack that can put on the pressure if your Pokémon are hurting.

Build up that hand size and discombobulate the opponent with Alakazam’s Powerful Hand attack, which places 2 damage counters on your opponent’s Active Pokémon for each card in your hand. Now, there traditionally aren’t very many effects that will draw your cards in the Prerelease format, but Alakazam’s Psychic Draw Ability can both increase your damage output and find you the cards you need. You’ll find that its pre-Evolution, Kadabra—which can also be found in your Build & Battle Box and booster packs—draws you cards with an Ability too, so you’ll have plenty of resources to work with.

Lunatone’s Lunar Cycle Ability is flat out amazing if you include Energy in your Prerelease deck. Radiant Greninja from the Sword & Shield—Astral Radiance expansion was well-known for its Concealed Cards Ability, drawing you two cards at the cost of discarding an Energy. Lunar Cycle is more specific since it requires you to discard a Basic Energy, but this Ability draws you an additional card, and that specificity can’t limit its use if you only include Energy in your deck. There are plenty of powerful Fighting-type Pokémon in Mega Evolution (like Hariyama and Mega Lucario ex), so don’t be afraid to include them all if Lunatone is your Prerelease promo card!

Whether you’re heading to a local game store or just playing with a friend, you’re in for some quick and fun battles with cards from the new Mega Evolution expansion! If you’re not able to make it to a Prerelease event, these Build & Battle Boxes will be available for purchase when the expansion officially launches and kicks off the Mega Evolution series.

A new mobile app has been shown to reduce suicidal behavior among high-risk psychiatric inpatients. The app, OTX-202, reduced the recurrence of inpatient psychiatric post-discharge suicide attempts by 58.3% for patients with a prior suicide attempt.¹ However, there was no significant difference in time to first suicide attempt between those who used the app and those who did not.

The recent multi-site, double-blind study enrolled 339 adult inpatients with a psychiatric disorder, who received either the OTX-202 app or an active control app, in addition to their usual treatment (including suicide risk assessment, supportive listening, crisis resources, clinician assessment, safety planning, and referral to outpatient treatment). Exclusion criteria included “acutely impaired mental status inhibiting capacity to provide informed consent (eg, uncontrolled psychosis or mania, or under the influence of alcohol or other substances)” and “cognitive impairments or medical conditions that could adversely affect the integrity of the data.”¹ The intervention app was designed to deliver suicide-specific cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) modules, while the control app provided general psychoeducation and safety planning. Suicidal ideation was measured throughout the study by the Clinical Global Impression for Severity of Suicide Change scale. For both groups, the first app session was completed prior to hospital discharge and the remaining sessions could be completed after discharge.

Most notably, there was a significant sustained reduction in suicidal ideation among participants who used OTX-202; the reduction persisted for up to 24 weeks after discharge. In contrast, the control group’s suicidal ideation levels, which initially decreased, rebounded by the 24-week follow-up. The odds of clinical improvement were also higher for the treatment group, with 97.9% vs 87.5% for treatment vs control and odds ratio, 7.59; 95% CI, 1.14-153.62; P = .04. The authors hypothesized that the digital intervention may be able to maintain therapeutic progress from inpatient treatment outside of the structured clinical setting.

The app focuses on ensuring access to specialized, suicide-focused therapy, which is particularly important during the high-risk post-hospitalization period. Therapeutic modules found on the app are delivered in brief 10 to 15 minute sessions and are designed to reinforce key CBT principles for managing suicidal thoughts and developing coping strategies. Senior author Seth Feuerstein, MD, JD, a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, underscored this critical need, stating in a press release, “Patients and those who care for them do not have access to reliable and effective tools and resources to reduce future suicide risk. This population faces arguably the biggest gap in access to effective interventions of any leading killer.”²

The weeks and months following discharge from psychiatric hospitalization are among the highest-risk periods for suicide attempts and death; this new digital intervention targets the vulnerable group of individuals who are at higher risk for multiple suicidal behaviors or attempts. According to study author Craig Bryan, PsyD, a professor at Ohio State University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, the app offers a novel solution to the challenge of connecting patients with specialized, life-saving therapy after they leave the hospital. “Although suicide-specific therapy is highly effective for reducing suicidal thoughts and urges, finding therapists who know how to do this life-saving therapy after leaving the hospital can be challenging. OTX-202 provides a possible solution to that problem,” he noted.²

References

1. Bryan CJ, Simon P, Wilkinson ST, et al. A digital therapeutic intervention for inpatients with elevated suicide risk: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(8):e2525809

2. Gardner C. Yale study: mobile phone app reduced suicidal behavior among high-risk patients. Yale School of Medicine. August 8, 2025. Accessed August 19, 2025. https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/yale-ohio-state-study-mobile-phone-app-reduced-suicidal-behavior-among-high-risk-patients/

Prince William has ‘unique’ plans for his reign as king in the future and Harry is a liability, a royal expert believes.

Royal expert Kinsey Schofield claimed this while speaking to the Fox News Digital.

“Harry will raise his children in the United States. Strangers to their cousins. King Charles just wants peace, but I believe Prince William is checked out,” the expert said.

Prince William wants to protect his family and the future of the monarchy, Kinsey said and added, “He has unique plans for his reign. He [wants to] be a good king, and Harry is a liability.”

Schofield also believes the royals are not ready to trust Harry again – if ever.

She further said, “It’s too little too late. Harry opens ‘Spare’ by revealing that King Charles begged him and his brother not to ‘make my final years a misery.’ I find this request so much more heartbreaking now that we know of the king’s cancer. The Oprah Winfrey interview, ‘Spare,’ the Netflix series – it’s too much hurt.”

The fresh claims came as Prince Harry will attend the 2025 WellChild Awards, taking place in London on September 8th.

This sparkling ceremony celebrates the inspirational achievements of seriously ill children and those who care for them.  

Lenovo showcased a prototype of the Legion Go successor at CES earlier this year. According to a new rumor, the new handheld, likely to be called Legion Go 2, will make its official debut at the upcoming IFA Berlin, which starts on September 5.

Tipster Evan Blass has revealed details regarding Lenovo’s announcements at IFA Berlin. As per the marketing materials shared by the tipster, the second-gen Legion Go will be equipped with AMD’s Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 architecture based Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU.

AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme’s key strength is improved graphics, which is powered by the Radeon 890M GPU. The new handheld from Lenovo is, therefore, expected to offer improved graphics performance in games.

In terms of design, the handheld will largely look similar to the original Legion Go. It will come with an 8.8-inch OLED display with a refresh rate of 144Hz and 1600p resolution. The handheld will also offer a new coating that is said to be fingerprint resistant.