August 25, 2026

Meta had not released open weights for its Muse Spark 1.2 model as of Aug. 25, 2026, despite signals earlier in the month that an open version was coming. The company launched Muse Spark 1.2 on Aug. 5 as a closed, login-gated flagship coding model. On Aug. 10, it released a separate, smaller model, Muse Glimmer, under an open Apache 2.0 license, with Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang stating publicly that an open-weight version of Spark 1.2 was coming soon.

That promise had not been fulfilled by the resolution date; Muse Spark 1.2 itself remained accessible only through Meta's hosted, closed offering.

The distinction between the two releases -- Glimmer opened, Spark 1.2 still closed -- was widely covered as evidence Meta was easing back toward its earlier open-model strategy incrementally rather than all at once, a shift from the more fully closed approach it had taken with some recent Llama successors.

Predict Six's community had assigned a 68% chance Meta would ship the Spark 1.2 weights by Aug. 25, overestimating how quickly the announced open release would materialize.

'The End of Oak Street,' the Anne Hathaway-Ewan McGregor dinosaur thriller that opened Aug. 14, held its 85% 'fresh' critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer through the Aug. 24 resolution date. The score, based on more than 185 reviews, made it one of the best-reviewed dinosaur-genre films of the century, ranking above every 'Jurassic World' sequel and trailing only the original 1993 'Jurassic Park' among major entries in the genre.

Critics generally praised the film's practical effects and old-school, Amblin-style tone even while noting its plot covered familiar ground. Audience reception ran cooler, with viewers giving the film scores in the 70s-percent range on Rotten Tomatoes' separate Popcornmeter, a typical gap between critics and general audiences for genre films leaning into nostalgia.

The steady critics' score reflects that reviews largely settled in the days immediately following release, with little late-breaking critical reassessment to move the number.

Predict Six's community had put only a 44% chance on the score holding at 85% or higher, underestimating the stability of an already-large review sample.

The fifth and final season of 'Outer Banks' debuted at No. 1 on Netflix's weekly English-language TV chart for the week of Aug. 17-23, 2026, drawing 9.4 million views in its opening days after premiering Aug. 20. It marked the show's fourth consecutive season to top the chart on debut.

The viewership figure was lower than Season 4's premiere, which launched to 15.5 million views in October 2024, but Netflix and trade outlets characterized the final season's start as a solid send-off that dominated Top 10 lists in 84 countries, including holding the No. 1 spot in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland.

The softer year-over-year number reflects a broader pattern of gradual viewership decline as long-running Netflix series approach their finales, though 'Outer Banks' remained comfortably ahead of competing titles on the platform that week.

Predict Six's community had this essentially as a coin flip at 50%, and the season did land atop the chart.

The FDA did not approve Capricor Therapeutics' cell therapy deramiocel for Duchenne muscular dystrophy-associated cardiomyopathy by its original Aug. 22, 2026, PDUFA target date. Instead, on Aug. 24 the company announced the agency extended its review by three months, pushing the target action date to Nov. 22, after Capricor submitted a major amendment to its Biologics License Application.

The amendment included 24-month open-label extension data from the Phase 3 HOPE-3 trial and additional analyses supporting a narrower, refined indication focused on preserving upper-limb function, rather than the broader cardiomyopathy indication an FDA advisory committee had reviewed. That committee voted 9-3 in July that existing evidence did not provide substantial evidence of effectiveness, though the panel's recommendation was nonbinding. HOPE-3 had shown deramiocel slowed decline on a standard upper-limb function measure by 54% and slowed decline in heart pumping capacity by 91% versus placebo.

The extension keeps deramiocel's approval prospects alive but delays any decision into the fall.

Predict Six's community had assigned only a 22% chance of approval by Aug. 22, correctly anticipating that the FDA would not approve the therapy by that date.

No hurricane watch was issued for any part of the U.S. coastline before Aug. 25, 2026, even as the National Hurricane Center tracked multiple areas of interest in the Atlantic through late August. Two disturbances were active in the basin in the days before resolution: a system that strengthened into short-lived Tropical Storm Cristobal well east of Bermuda, and additional low-pressure areas that forecasters flagged for possible slow development in the central and eastern Atlantic.

None of the systems tracked toward a path threatening the U.S. mainland with hurricane-force winds within the resolution window, and NOAA's mid-August seasonal update maintained its call for a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season overall.

The lack of a coastal hurricane watch continued a quiet stretch for the U.S. this season relative to the historical average pace of activity for late August, traditionally among the Atlantic's most active weeks.

Predict Six's community had leaned narrowly toward a watch being issued, assigning it a 52% chance, essentially a coin flip that ultimately resolved no.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield closed at 4.625% on Aug. 24, 2026, staying above the 4.60% threshold after climbing as high as 4.73% earlier in the month, its highest level since early 2025. Yields fell more than 7 basis points that day, marking a second consecutive daily decline, but the retreat was not steep enough to pull the note back under 4.60%.

The run-up in yields through much of August reflected persistent concerns among bond investors about inflation, elevated federal borrowing needs, and uncertainty over the pace of Federal Reserve rate cuts. The late-week pullback in yields coincided with a rally in equities, with the S&P 500 and Dow both advancing as Treasury yields eased.

The move fits a broader 2026 pattern in which long-term yields have swung within a wide band as markets recalibrated Fed policy expectations against sticky inflation data and heavy Treasury issuance.

Predict Six's community had assigned a 90% chance the yield would hold above 4.60%, and the outcome matched that expectation.

Jason Statham's action thriller 'Mutiny' opened to an estimated $7.5 million domestically over its Aug. 21-23 weekend, falling short of the $10 million threshold. The film debuted in sixth place from roughly 2,600 North American screens, well behind box-office leader 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day.'

The soft debut followed a widely reported streaming leak: a full-length copy of the R-rated film accidentally became available on Amazon Prime Video in the days before its theatrical release, a mishap that industry trackers and trade outlets cited as a likely drag on ticket sales. Despite the underwhelming opening, the film earned a B+ CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences, indicating decent reception among those who did see it in theaters.

With a reported $40 million production budget, the muted domestic start raises questions about the film's path to profitability absent a strong overseas run or later streaming performance.

Predict Six's community had put a 58% chance on 'Mutiny' clearing $10 million; the film came in well under that mark.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 24 granted the Trump administration's request for emergency relief, allowing the president's executive order restricting mail-in ballot delivery to proceed ahead of the 2026 midterms, rather than denying the appeal. The 6-3 ruling lifted an injunction that had blocked part of the order, which directs the U.S. Postal Service to withhold mail ballots from voters not on lists created under the administration's eligibility criteria. Democratic officials from 23 states and Washington, D.C., had sued to block the order, arguing the Constitution reserves election administration to states and Congress.

The court's action was an interim procedural win for the administration rather than a final ruling on the order's legality, and implementation remains complicated: a separate nationwide injunction issued Aug. 11 by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston still blocks the Postal Service from following the directive, leaving room for further litigation before the order can take full effect.

Predict Six's community had priced an 89% chance the court would deny the appeal, the opposite of what happened -- one of the larger misses of the week.