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FFXIV Outlined A New 'Evolved Mode' Job Overhaul During A FanFest Devlopment Panel -- Here's What You Need To Know
A lengthy Dev Panel covered the overview of the Evolved Jobs mode that overhauls the class system, including both a presentation and live gameplay showing off what's to come.
Adams County Health Department joins Drug Take Back Day efforts
Drug Take Back Day allows anyone with unneeded medications to dispose of them safely.
‘We are Xbox’: Xbox confirms name change, new logo
CEO Asha Sharma and Executive Vice President Matt Booty are continuing to overhaul the gaming giant.
Former Durham student attempts 10 Ironmans in 10 days for charity
Fergus Crawley is raising money for a mental health charity to mark 10 years since his own crisis.
Denver plans streamlining of nightclub, entertainment licenses, with some spots allowed to stay open later
The city’s nightlife offerings — including everything from concert venues and nightclubs to some wine bars and restaurants — are set to see a major overhaul this year.
The applicability of Hungary’s election to our politics
American conservatives, largely synonymous these days with MAGA save for a few lonely voices of courage and dissent, have plenty to lament. Their domination of the political landscape is waning. Various special elections hither and yon have presented bright, flashing caution signs. A very difficult, perhaps devastating, off-year election beckons. Major fractures have surfaced within […]
Colorado lawmakers propose sweeping security overhaul after rise in political attacks nationwide
Colorado legislators unveiled a 60‑page bill that would dramatically expand protections for elected officials, staff, and judicial employees, responding to a string of high‑profile attacks nationwide and growing safety concerns inside the state’s courthouses and Capitol. Introduced earlier this week, House Bill 1422 contains nearly 30 sections. Among those provisions is the establishment of an […]
Iran talks to resume this weekend without Vance
The White House will send Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, as Tehran decides not to send its top negotiator.
News | North Carolina’s Research Triangle scores another $1 billion-plus life science campus
AbbVie’s drug manufacturing complex in Durham expected to create over 730 jobs
Nintendo releases Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 soundtracks on Spotify
Starting today, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy music can be played on Spotify. Nintendo said that the music is being offered in celebration of Mario’s 40th anniversary. Between the two games, you can listen to 130 tracks, coming in at about five hours. Nintendo has long had a strange – or perhaps absent – relationship with the leading...
Best of the Best: Duke’s Legacy in the Collegiate Women Sports Awards
DURHAM, N.C.-- Women's sports have never had a bigger stage. Audiences are growing, athletes are becoming household names and the conversation around female ...
‘I know what I’m capable of’: George Russell hopes 2026 won’t be his ‘one and only shot’ at F1 title
Formula One has in the year of 2026 has perhaps never been as unpredictable and unexpected as demonstrated by the opening throws of the still nascent season.
Owning the stage: Look past Live Nation's legal troubles to see a growing, high-margin venue business
Live Nation's stock hasn't caught up to the possibility that the company, once freed from its legal overhang, can capture more fan dollars.
Live Nation's legal woes are masking the opportunity in this entertainment stock
Justin Zacks, senior equity analyst and correspondent at CNBC, explains why Live Nation is in a position to pop as legal overhangs could be overshadowing a large growth opportunity for the live entertainment company.
Imagine There’s No Politics: A Review of the Northern Report
The proposals for overhauling the Institute of Education Sciences could address its operational inefficiencies but are unlikely to break through our ideological stalemate
Ace tanks spearhead vehicular carnage with new Armoured Gauntlet rules
Fight big armoured battles with the new Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick expansion.
RFK, Jr. set to overhaul key committee that issues disease screening recommendations
Lawmakers grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on cuts and changes to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which focuses on preventive health screening
Google teases Gemini-powered Siri upgrade during Cloud Next keynote
Apple’s upcoming Siri overhaul got a moment of stage time during Google’s Cloud Next ’26 opening keynote today. Google highlights...
Health officials warn Oregon measles outbreak is growing
A state epidemiologist joins us with more details about where the outbreak stands and how people can stay safe.
'We didn't run out of time... We wasted it'
Right now, Tottenham fans would do almost anything for a sliver more. As 2025 turned into 2026, the boardroom at Spurs refused to panic. Finally, the double act of Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange, perhaps the biggest wasters of time in our recent history, acted.
Zoom across Armageddon with new Space Marine Detachments
All-vehicle armies and mounted Space Marine infantry? Yes, please!
Analysis: Fans have turned on Rosenior
It marked radical new low point in a bleak run of five consecutive league defeats without a goal for Chelsea - their worst such sequence in more than a century and one that few supporters have witnessed in their lifetime. Given the club's success over the past 25 years, it is perhaps understandable that patience is thin for a head coach appointed just three months ago from Chelsea's partner club, Strasbourg. There were early signs that the night might not unfold as Rosenior had hoped.
ISS astronauts are in the middle of a tech overhaul
The astronauts will be using HP ZBook Fury G9 laptops.
Hoover East Sports Park reopens after $4.1M electrical overhaul
HOOVER, Ala. (WBMA) — Hoover East Sports Park is back open after a major electrical overhaul that shut down parts of the facility for more than a year.City lead
J.P. Morgan lifts S&P 500 year-end target to 7,600 on AI-driven earnings
J.P. Morgan on Tuesday raised its year-end target for the S&P 500 index to 7,600, citing AI and tech-driven earnings, just weeks after lowering its forecast, with a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran aiding sentiment.
Da Speedwaaagh! begins with two new Ork Detachments
Join Wazdakka’s lads for a high-speed krumpin’ with new Warhammer 40,000 rules.
Lore of Armageddon Part 3
What is Ghazghkull Thraka up to, and who are his most trusted Bosses?
City of Rochester released final zoning code proposal
It's part of a years-long effort to overhaul the city's zoning code and map.
Massachusetts Governor Signs Cannabis Bill, Changing Purchase Limits, Regulatory Scheme
Gov. Maura Healey approved the plan to overhaul the Cannabis Control Commission, encourage business growth and broaden consumer access.
FERC seeks $1.1 billion from Abram-led Durham energy firms
Regulators have fined Durham-based energy-efficiency business American Efficient $722 million, saying it’s behind “one of the largest and most brazen frauds” they’ve ever seen.
#New40k – Chaplain with Jump Pack Revealed
Recite the Litany of Hate with the new Chaplain miniature for Warhammer 40,000.
Unleash the Astra Militarum motor pool with new Detachments from Armageddon
Big tanks and light vehicles get their spotlights with new Warhammer 40,000 rules.
Apple's major MacBook Pro overhaul is reportedly 'slightly' delayed due to supply chain shortages
A lot of us are impatiently awaiting the next-generation of MacBook Pro, which is expected to feature a bevy of...
Ubisoft’s New Action RPG Is Devil May Cry Meets Cyberpunk
Despite a string of recent controversies, a huge overhaul of its business model, and a restructuring of its most important IP, Ubisoft is seemingly continuing to produce good games. Sure, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was a fairly enjoyable revamp of a very familiar formula, and Star Wars Outlaws, as lambasted as it was at launch, impressed […]
Sunday Preview – Yarrick returns to Armageddon
See what’s coming up for pre-order next week!
Nebraska Science Festival Expo takes over Durham Museum
The 13th annual expo at the Durham Museum includes appearances from UNO, Creighton, UNMC and more.
Don Schlitz, country songwriter behind 'The Gambler,' dies at 73
Schlitz was born in 1952 and raised in Durham before packing his bags and heading to Nashville.
Statehouse beat: Ethics in West Virginia politics are dead and gone
We are witnessing an appalling, perhaps unprecedented decline in ethics in West Virginia politics.
Saturday pre-orders – Enter the City of Ash
A new Spearhead expansion and Ossiarch Bonereapers reinforcements are available to pre-order now.
It’s not rocket science: UNC System leaders make the case for increased funding
There's perhaps no better advocate for North Carolina’s higher education system these days than NASA Astronaut Christina Koch.
Hoboken zoning overhaul targets business growth
The Hoboken Business Alliance and city launch a zoning code modernization effort to streamline permitting and expand commercial uses.
NBA playoffs 2026: Can the underdog Lakers find a path to success against the Rockets?
The Lakers are among a few plucky underdogs who can perhaps make some noise in the first round.
Exit 8 is cinema for the livestreaming era
When watching a video game is entertainment, what is watching a movie of a video game?
Stock market today: Indexes hit records after Iran says Hormuz is open
US stocks surged and oil prices plunged after Iran announced the Strait of Hormuz was "completely open," removing a key overhang for markets.
Warhammer 40,000 rules reveal – Shoot from the saddle with Inquisitor Kroyle and Intranzia Fraye
We continue our look at the rules of units released alongside Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick.
Alabama Football 2026: Meet the New Special Teamers
Alabama went with a full overhaul after a rough special teams outing in 2025
Astra Militarum rules revealed – Commissar Graves and new vehicles
Armoured vehicles rumble from the hives of Armageddon to open up new tactics in Warhammer 40,000.
Community, business leaders learn about economic growth during annual breakfast
There are many pieces in the healthy economy puzzle. Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) Director Debi Durham spoke at the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Outlook Breakfast on Wednesday morning and shared what should be done to help foster growth in local economies. Chamber President/CEO John Hall sat on the stage with Durham at […]
Siri Engineers Sent to AI Coding Bootcamp as Apple Prepares to Deliver Siri Overhaul
Apple is sending a large portion of its Siri engineers to a multi-week bootcamp to learn to code using AI, reports The Information. Apple's decision to teach its programmers to better use AI for coding comes just two months before Apple is expected to unveil a smarter, more capable version of Siri at WWDC. While employees attend the coding bootcamp, around 60 members of the Siri development team will stick around to work on Siri, and an additional 60 will evaluate how Siri is performing.
Hungary’s Magyar urges president to quit, vows to overhaul state media
Incoming Prime Minister Peter Magyar says his government could be formed by mid-May.
Amazon buys former Hermon drive-in
Tax records show the approximately 20-acre property was purchased by Amazon for $1.9 million, more than three times the fair market value. Amazon has already opened a shipping hub in Caribou, with plans for more in Gorham and Waterville.
Allbirds shares surge over 430% as footwear firm trades shoes for AI business
In a radical strategic overhaul, Allbirds is divesting its footwear business while securing $50 million (€42.4 million) in new financing to acquire GPUs and rebrand as NewBird AI.View on euronews
I had a health crisis at 46 — it forced me to change everything
Sydney Sajadi, 46, says a hysterectomy and severe burnout pushed her to overhaul her health and rethink her high-stress career.
Trump unloads on Powell, says he could fire Fed chair over ‘incompetence’
President Donald Trump joins FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo to discuss the AI race with China, Iran tensions, NATO clashes, and his push to overhaul the Fed while touting a strong U.S. economy and global strength.
Golden Demon 2026 – AdeptiCon finalists part two
Take a look at the work of the other talented painters who earned a coveted Finalist pin.
Virginia Tech lands a commitment from DL Xavier Perkins
Xavier Perkins trusted the feeling — and it led him to Blacksburg. The versatile defensive lineman out of Durham (N.C.) Jordan has committed to Virginia Tech, giving the Hokies a key piece in the trenches after a spring filled with visits and momentum shifts. “It came down to that feeling, and I felt it the […]
Redesigned Trump Phone Finally Emerges on Overhauled Trump Mobile Website
Trump Mobile now features a third design of the T1 phone, alongside images and videos of Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. There's still no release date.
Wazdakka Gutsmek rules revealed – Launch your own Speedwaaagh!
Lead your Warbikers to the biggest and best fights around.
Games Workshop brings seven classic Warhammer games to Steam for the first time
Fans of miniature plastic soldiers, rejoice. Games Workshop has brought a host of older Warhammer and Warhammer 40K video games to Steam for the first time.
More Than 20 Classic Warhammer PC Games Just Hit Steam, Including Shadow of the Horned Rat, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior, and Space Hulk — Check Out the List in Full
More than 20 classic Warhammer PC video games have hit Steam as part of a new Warhammer Classics initiative. Check out the list in full.
Kierra M talks the latest in entertainment headlines
Britney Spears checks herself into rehab 5 Weeks after DUI arrest
Sustainability At ESMT Berlin: Bees & Business Lessons
ESMT Berlin is a place to find both future business leaders and bees. A strange combination, perhaps, but one that encapsulates sustainability at ESMT. Here, faculty prepare students to become chang...
Bayern Munich exec condemns treatment of fans in Madrid
Were FC Bayern fans victimized in Madrid?
Warhammer Classics brings legendary games back to your PC
Shadow of the Horned Rat, Chaos Gate, Dark Omen, Fire Warrior and more have returned.
Billy Donovan, perhaps coaching Bulls for last time, faces Mavericks
Chicago's season-ending road clash with the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday will be Bulls coach Billy Donovan's 482nd regular-season game on the bench.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Major Wolverhampton genetics study targets community health gaps
A study invites Pakistani and Bangladeshi residents in Wolverhampton to help improve health care.
Edwardsville IL Vietnam veteran reflects on war, business
Ron Eberhart reflects on his time serving in Vietnam and his lifetime in Edwardsville.
How Political Differences Can Affect Golf Players Concentration on the Links and Beyond
A new study suggests political differences among golfers can affect concentration on the links—and perhaps in the workplace as well.
20 years after passing nation-leading health care law, Mass. braces for new challenges
A landmark health coverage law passed 20 years ago gave Massachusetts among the lowest uninsured rates in the country. It inspired the sweeping federal overhaul known as the Affordable Care Act. Now many are wondering whether that period of intense negotiations and compromise offers lessons for today's urgent health care challenges.
Sherrill’s plan to overhaul school mental health services draws criticism
NJ’s current system has detractors, but critics of Sherrill’s plan call it untested
Warhammer Brings Its Own 'Vampire Survivors' Game To Switch 1 & 2 This Year
In partnership with poncle
City of Bryan provides health update on City Manager Andrew Nelson
The City of Bryan announced Thursday that City Manager Andrew Nelson is undergoing treatment for a mass found in his brain.
Warhammer Survivors adds PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and Switch versions
Survivors-like roguelite action game Warhammer Survivors will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and Switch alongside its previously announced PC (Steam) version in 2026, developer Au…
RFK Jr. launches health podcast as his vaccine push stalls
The move follows setbacks to overhaul U.S. vaccination policy, including low public support and a federal court ruling that halted key plans.
Google Pixel 11 reportedly gets Samsung’s new flagship display ahead of iPhone
According to a new report, Google’s upcoming Pixel 11 series will be among the first – perhaps even the first...
Xbox’s New System Update Delivers Overhaul Gamers Have Been Begging For
Xbox has finally listened to console user feedback with a major system update rolling out now.
Mercedes reports drop in Q1 sales during 'transition year' for China market
Mercedes-Benz reported another drop in sales in its core car business in the first quarter of 2026 as the German premium carmaker lost further ground in the tough Chinese market amid an overhaul of its lineup there.
Avalara to Deliver Fully Embedded, Automated Sales Tax Compliance Tool to Small Businesses Within the Clover Platform
New integration brings seamless access to daily tax set-aside, real-time tracking, and guaranteed filing and remittance DURHAM, N.C., April 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Avalara, Inc., the agentic tax...
‘One of the most dysfunctional places’: One lawmaker on Lansing’s challenges
Calling the state capitol “one of the most dysfunctional places” in America, Democratic State Rep. Alabas Farhat joins the pod for a candid conversation about the challenges facing Lansing
"Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible": Smith's political science at Econlib
We’re joining our friends at Liberty Matters in their celebration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations through a series of six weekly essays. In this fifth essay, Jacob T. Levy explores one of Smith’s most famous claims in Book V of Wealth […]
“Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible”: Smith’s political science
Yet the argument of Book V is something quite different. Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor […]
“Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible”: Smith’s political science
Yet the argument of Book V is something quite different. Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor […]
Texas students urge education board to focus on inclusion over politics in social studies overhaul
Students, parents and teachers say Texas’ new social studies plan feels rushed and will exclude key perspectives and historical events.
Texas students urge education board to focus on inclusion over politics in social studies overhaul
Students, parents and teachers say Texas’ new social studies plan feels rushed and will exclude key perspectives and historical events.
Texas students urge education board to focus on inclusion over politics in social studies overhaul
Students, parents and teachers say Texas’ new social studies plan feels rushed and will exclude key perspectives and historical events.
#New40k – Take cover with updated terrain rules
It’s not hiding, it’s tactical! See how rocks and ruins have changed in the new edition.
What Tucker Carlson’s big break with Trump means
Tucker Carlson’s comments about Donald Trump on Monday marked perhaps the biggest break thus far between the president and a leading conservative influencer.
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence sharpened by a jutting black beard. He’s formidable, his aura superior. Holmes opens his biography of the youthful Tennyson by describing the similar formality of the imposing Tennyson statue at Trinty College Cambridge, sharing the honor with other Trinity greats, including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Holmes doesn’t want to chip away at that statue but rather reveal its inner youthful core of the man—tall, handsome, and talented but unformed, emerging from a disturbed family of addicted or insane male siblings and four unusual sisters struggling under a violent alcoholic clergyman father. Alfred was certainly statuesque, but would he end up a block of unformed stone like his equally promising brothers? He was youngest of three equally regarded Tennyson brothers at Cambridge, all bright, handsome, and talented, in fact Alfred regarded by some as less promising than his elders who also wrote poetry. Yet Alfred wrote one of his major poems, “The Kraken,” at twenty, revealing both his talent, his interest in geological forces, and the haunting creature that embodied his anxieties. While Holmes focuses on Tennyson of the 1830s and 1840s, he can’t tell his story without exploring his involvement with the Victorian intellectual upheaval. Tennyson was fascinated by new scientific perspectives, following the latest findings as soon as books and articles were published. He was especially taken with Charles Lyell’s deep studies of geology and the discovery of fossils and a timeline of the planet’s development that did much to question fundamental religious assumptions. The impact of these discoveries is reflected in Tennyson’s poetry and led to the crisis in belief he shared with so many contemporaries. He was especially taken by the cycles of destruction and renewal that informed the struggles he confronted in In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Tennyson was only one of the eventual major figures at Cambridge at the same time, young men just beginning to realize their potential. Charles Darwin was at Christ College, although there is no evidence that he and Tennyson even met as students or later in life. Yet evolution became significant in Tennyson’s thinking and the issues of his poetry. One of Tennyson’s best and most important Cambridge friends was Edward FitzGerald, who became the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and in their on and off relationship served as Tennyson’s harshest critic. FitzGerald was also a friend of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the two of them partying in Paris as undergraduates. That connection led to a friendship between Thackeray and Tennyson. Others who came to play significant roles in Tennyson’s life were Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Tennyson’s deepest friend at college was Arthur Hallam, who at twenty wrote a glowing review of Tennyson’s first poetry collection, travelled on European adventures with him, and fell in love with his sister Emily. Hallam was also regarded as one more very promising Cambridge student. His sudden death at twenty-two in Vienna from a stroke while travelling with his father devastated many friends, but perhaps Tennyson most of all. He did not write immediate poems of grief but took years to compile those collected in In Memoriam A.H.H., published in 1850, almost twenty years after Hallam’s death For all of Tennyson’s early poetic successes and successes, Holmes reveals him as an often troubled young man suffering periods of depression, fearing planetary upheaval, concerned about supporting himself, disappointed in romances, and worried that he would inherit the family’s mental illness tendencies. Yet despite his seeming withdrawals, he was always writing poetry that he kept private and would not let go, constantly revising. 1850 became a transformative year for Tennyson. He finally consented to publishing In Memoriam with a last-minute prologue that acknowledged God and perhaps convinced the religious Emily Sellwood to marry him after years of pursuit.. He opened up to Emily, revealing his struggles with fears of depression and “weird seizures.” The devastating event of that time was the stillborn death of his unnamed first son. It shook him, but Emily’s faith brought them closer and convinced him to believe in an afterlife. Two later sons survived. With the death of William Wordworth in April of 1950, Tennyson was named poet laureate at age forty-one, reluctantly accepting. It’s as if Tennyson’s life split in half in that year. He lived another forty years, now a recognized success, with the prestige of being an official poet writing patriotic verse, wealthy and revered, no longer the insecure young man seeking an outlet for his immense talent. He earned a place in the Authors deck, now dignified and in 1884 elevated to the peerage as Arthur, Lord Tennyson. Richard Holmes is the author of twenty previous books on the Romantics and Victorians, several of which received awards. The Boundless Deep was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He captures the complex vicissitudes of Tennyson’s youth, illustrated by frequent excerpts from the poetry, placing that life in the full context of the shattering discoveries that led to an upheaval of thought in the Victorian age.
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