SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- Ten of the best young songwriters competing on Germany's "Dein Song" spent last week filming at a new songwriting camp in Frankfurt am Main, part of the ZDF and KiKA competition's 19th season. The camp followed a casting round held in Wiesbaden in late July 2026. Contestants reworked their compositions and performed a semi-final round for the judging panel. The 16-part documentary series and finale are set to air in February 2027 on KiKA, kika.de, the KiKA app, ZDF streaming and the ZDFtivi app.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- Germany's men's basketball team beat the Netherlands 99-83 in Cologne on August 27 in a World Cup qualifying game, while forward Johannes Voigtmann was honored before tip-off as he stepped away from the national team after 11 years, 128 caps and 830 points. In a separate preparation match at the same venue, the German women's team lost 62-63 to Turkey, its third straight defeat in August. Both squads now shift focus to upcoming tournaments: the men travel to Poland on August 30, and the women open the home World Cup in Berlin on September 4.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- Massage Envy named five massage therapy students as its July 2026 scholarship recipients on Thursday, each receiving $2,500 toward their education. The Scottsdale, Arizona-based franchisor picks five winners every month through its National Scholarship Sweepstakes, a program running continuously since 2022. The July recipients are Haley S., Auriel B., Yesenia V., Jingmin H. and Thanyaporn G. None of them are required to work at a Massage Envy location after graduation.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- Homeowners in Recklinghausen, Germany, are discovering that decades of deferred maintenance can shrink a house's resale value far more than the cost of fixing it would. Brummelt & Müller Immobilien GmbH, a real estate agency in the western German city, said buyers are increasingly avoiding homes where heating, electrical systems or windows haven't been updated in 30 or 40 years. The agency's outlook covers the wider Ruhr region, where a wave of generational property transfers is now reaching the market.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- iScreen, a mobile customization app used by more than 100 million people, launched an interactive digital pet feature for iPhone Home Screens on August 28, 2026. The Los Angeles-based company built the update around Nimori, an original animated character that users can place alongside new widgets and stickers. The release lets iPhone owners turn a static grid of app icons into a screen with a character that reacts and moves.

Nimori Turns A Static Home Screen Into A Moving Character

Nimori is not a wallpaper or an app icon. It is built as an interactive figure that sits on the Home Screen and responds within the layout users create, giving the screen a sense of motion instead of a fixed image. Users can pair Nimori with themed widgets and stickers to build a layout around the character rather than around a single wallpaper.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- Fortuna Düsseldorf beat VfB Stuttgart II 1-0 on Friday night in the third matchday of Germany's 3. Liga, picking up its first win of the season after opening the campaign with two straight losses. Andreas Müller scored the only goal. Both clubs' coaches described the match as scrappy and low on quality, with Stuttgart II head coach Nico Willig calling the winning goal a classic bad-luck own-side error.

Düsseldorf, which dropped from the 2. Bundesliga last season, had rebuilt its squad with 16 to 17 new signings over the summer. Head coach Alexander Ende said the team played a solid preseason but stumbled out of the gate, losing a difficult away match at Mannheim before following it with a poor home performance. He said breaking that pattern required grinding, defensive work rather than open, attacking football, and that keeping a clean sheet mattered more than style points on the night.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 28, 2026 -- Seven new animated short films from Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia went live on the ARD Mediathek streaming platform today, the result of the "Key Frames 2026" funding program run by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM). Regional filmmakers and production companies completed the films within a few months. MDR has scheduled a televised premiere for October 30 during its MDR Kurzfilmnacht broadcast.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING -- August 27, 2026 -- Nine graduate social work students in Riverside County, California, began working directly inside one of the region's largest public agencies this week after California Baptist University (CBU) and the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) launched the inaugural ANCHOR Fellowship on Aug. 26 with a blazer ceremony at CBU. The yearlong program places CBU graduate students in leadership assignments tied to DPSS programs, operations and services. DPSS serves more than 1 million county residents every year.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING – August 5, 2026 – German appliance maker CASO Design has built its reputation on kitchen tools that blend function with clean design, and its SteamMaster E 56 built-in oven is one of the clearest examples of that approach. The oven combines steam cooking with more familiar functions like grilling, baking and defrosting, giving home cooks a single appliance for tasks that would otherwise require several separate tools. It's designed to slot into a standard 600mm wall cabinet, making it a realistic upgrade for kitchens that already have built-in appliances rather than a specialty purchase reserved for professional setups. For anyone who has struggled to get vegetables, fish or bread just right, steam-assisted cooking is meant to take some of the guesswork out of the process.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING – July 19, 2026 – Audi brought its performance credentials to the Miami Grand Prix at the end of April, marking the brand's first US Formula 1 appearance as a factory team and debuting the all-new Audi RS 5 in the F1 Pirelli Hot Lap Program for the first time on American soil. The weekend spanned the racetrack at Miami Gardens and the streets of Wynwood, with city-wide fan activations, partner events, and premium hospitality at Turn 1 running from April 30 through May 3. For Audi, the Miami debut carried particular significance — it was the brand's first US factory racing appearance since competing in Formula E in New York City in 2021.