SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " review " 6,752 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Armand Hammer's private art collection arrives at Sotheby's L.A.
Hammer Museum founder Armand Hammer's private art collection will go up for auction after a preview exhibition at Sotheby's L.A. Works include Mary Cassatt's "Summertime" and Edgar Degas' "Trois danseuses."
OU football not sure of offensive identity heading into Georgia
OU (2-1) fell out of the AP Top 25 following Saturday’s 14-6 win over New Mexico (2-1), a result that felt more like a loss to many Sooner fans. Now,
Ohio State men’s basketball player preview: Lee Aaliya
Lee Aaliya was the final addition to the Ohio State men’s basketball roster this offseason, but will he have a role this season?
Kenner business owner arrested, accused of video voyeurism after camera found in bathroom
During a review of the recordings, the business owner, identified as Henry Rios, 57, of Kenner, was seen manipulating the position of the camera and later putting the device in his office, according to police.
The Maker’s Toolbox: Bambu Lab R1 CO2 Laser Cutter Review
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks testing the new Bambu Lab R1 and have a lot of thoughts to share with you.
What CDC's new teen health survey shows, and what it skips
Teen suicide risk hit a 10-year low in 2025. Guns, sexual violence, and self-harm. Where are the 2025 data on transgender teens? Missing data changes public health policy. Teen suicide risk hit a 10-year low in 2025. CDC asked more than 10,000 high school students over 100 questions in spring 2025. Yesterday, it published a report covering a fraction of them. The report focsed on five areas: diet, physical activity, sleep, digital behaviors, and mental health, reflecting the priorities of the Make America Healthy Again movement. There was good news. Fewer teens seriously considered suicide in 2025 than in any survey year since 2015: 14%, down from 20% in 2023. Sadness fell. Underlying Conditions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Sports participation, which dipped to 49% in 2021, is back to its 2015 level of 58%. Daily PE fell from 27% to 20% in two years, while fewer students eat breakfast daily than a decade ago. Guns, sexual violence, and self-harm. The questionnaire is public, and it goes well beyond those five areas. Students answered questions about sexual violence, self-harm, and whether they got help when they felt sad or anxious. They said how quickly they could get a loaded gun. They reported whether food ran out at home and whether they felt close to people at school. There were questions about sexual identity, including whether they were transgender. The report did not publish any of the answers students gave to those questions. CDC posts the raw survey data online, so anyone can see what the report left out. The report doesn’t cover the health of sexual minority students. Among students who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning, or another non-straight identity, persistent sadness fell from 66% to 57% between 2023 and 2025. Serious thoughts of suicide fell from 41% to 30%. Those drops were bigger than the ones among straight students, although the gap remains wide: 28% of straight students reported persistent sadness, about half the rate of LGBQ+ students. About 1 in 7 girls reported sexual violence in the past year. One in 6 students hurt themselves on purpose. Among students who needed help for sadness or anxiety, half rarely or never got it. And among students who had seriously considered suicide, 43% said they could get a loaded gun without an adult’s permission. One protective factor rose sharply. In 2023, 55% of students said they felt close to people at their school; in 2025, 63% did. CDC’s earlier research ties that kind of connection to better mental health. Where are the 2025 data on transgender teens? In 2023, CDC's national survey asked high school students, for the first time, whether they were transgender. Their answers are the only nationally representative data on transgender teens, and their mental health is by far the worst of any demographic. That year, 71% of transgender students reported persistent sadness, 54% seriously considered suicide, and 26% attempted it, compared with 38%, 18%, and 8% of cisgender students. But we don’t have 2025 data. The timing matters because students took the survey in spring 2025, as federal policy toward transgender youth shifted. On January 28th, an executive order directed agencies to end federal support for gender-affirming care for people under 19, and several hospitals paused that care within days. In February, the CDC said it would no longer process transgender identity data. Later in 2025, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and HHS ended the 988 Lifeline’s dedicated line for LGBTQ+ youth. Researchers disagree about how much state policy shapes trans teens’ mental health. A 2024 Trevor Project study estimated that anti-trans laws increased suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth. Critics dispute its methods and its estimates. The 2025 survey could have added national evidence to that fight. CDC collected the data but hasn’t publicly released it. Missing data changes public health policy. Surveillance works as a feedback loop. It can show officials whether their policies help or hurt. The CDC didn’t provide data on the students most exposed to transgender policy shifts. The report kept measures that frame health as personal choice, like fruit, breakfast, and sports. It left out measures that track policy, like gun access, mental healthcare, food at home, and school climate, all of which respond to what legislators and agencies decide. HHS did not respond to questions that I sent on September 21st.
Ligue 1 Review | Is Le Classique still a classic?
Le Classique is supposed to be Ligue 1’s premier fixture. However, the contrasting realities of France’s two biggest teams, Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille, meant that Sunday night...
Beats 360 Headphones Review: Best-Performing Beats Yet, and They're Modular
If you prefer over-ear headphones to earbuds for sports and exercise, these Beats are worth the investment.
Outwit, Outplay, Outlast: First WV competitor debuts in 51st season of 'Survivor'
The reality competition show "Survivor" premieres on Sept. 23, 2026, with its 51st season. This season will feature competitor Maggie Nestor, of Middleway, Jefferson County, West Virginia, the first person from West Virginia selected for the show.
Player Preview: Adam Oumiddoch
The four-star freshman hopes to be a regular contributor from day one.
Sonos Ace Ultra review: Giving the people what they want
The Ace Ultra is an obvious upgrade over the original Ace headphones, with headphone linking performing reliably already, even in its early phase.
Sonos Beam Ultra review: A huge Atmos upgrade for $699
The Sonos Beam Ultra isn't quite mid-range at $699, but it sounds almost as good as the huge Sonos Arc.
Attacks on Health Care in the occupied Palestinian territory (01-15 September 2026)
Situation Report in English on occupied Palestinian territory about Health, Protection and Human Rights and more; published on 22 Sep 2026 by Insecurity Insight
PS Plus Discount for One of PS5's Best New Indie Games
Well Dweller opens to 90+ critic reviews
One of 2026's Best-Rated PS5 Games Is Out Today, and You Probably Don't Even Know It
Well Dweller opens to 90+ critic reviews
Orioles prospect season review: Aron Estrada
The 21-year-old switch-hitter turned in a fine season at Double-A.
2026 Farm Science Review to showcase the latest ag technology and innovation for farmers
This year’s Farm Science Review is giving farmers a firsthand look at the newest innovations in agriculture. Show manager Nick Zachrich says attendees will have an opportunity to discuss how to make their farm more profitable in 2027. “Crop prices have rebounded a little bit,” he says. “There are still a lot of challenges going […]
This local band is getting back together, 15 years later
After a hiatus of more than 15 years, L&J band members Liz Kennedy, Justin Kennedy and Tim Shane bring their Midwest indie band back to the stage with a gig Sept. 26 at Sisters Books & Nooks in Cedar Rapids.
Bruce Hornsby talks hits, new album ahead of Iowa City show
Piano virtuoso Bruce Hornsby reflects on his hits, new album “Indigo Park,” and a freewheeling career ahead of his Sept. 30 concert with the Noisemakers at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City.
Bob the Drag Queen is a comedian first. Here’s why
The winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Broadway actor, Madonna tour emcee and author returns to Iowa with stand-up comedy — the thing that started it all.
The Giants’ season is already in danger, plus an early NHL preview
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Talk to your friends about EPA today. Coming up: 🔀 Vibe shift in L.A. 🤓 The WNBA’s spectacle 📕 We’re all football nerds Football season can be so fickle. Vibes can turn on a dime. Last week, we marveled at how the new-look Giants dominated the Cowboys in primetime. We wondered if New York’s ceiling could be higher than previously thought under coaching legend John Harbaugh. And we wondered if the Rams’ dream season...
Position grades from the Patriots’ win over the Steelers
Our film review of each position group after the Patriots’ 20-3 win over the Steelers.
Is 50 the new 60?
Subscribe TL;DR: Younger generations are showing signs of worse health compared to earlier-born cohorts at the same age This backward “drift” is showing up both in mortality risk and chronic disease Worsening trends in obesity and diabetes are the most consistent signals Taking the long view, we’ve made astonishing gains in health and life expectancy in the last century. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled from 32 years in 1900 to 73 years in 2024. (But don’t forget, there were still old people when life expectancy was 32). As people lived longer, they also generally lived healthier along the way. It turns out that avoiding things that can kill you early, like malnutrition and lots of childhood infections, also keeps you healthier later in life. In a classic 2004 paper, Finch and Crimmins proposed that cohorts of children who benefited from fewer early life infections had less lifetime exposure to inflammation and cardiovascular disease later in life, accelerating mortality improvements at older ages. Poor nutrition in the womb has also been linked to a higher risk of later chronic disease. The upshot is that improvements in childhood health can pay dividends many decades later. The combination of better living conditions (nutrition, sanitation) and medical advances (antibiotics, vaccines, blood pressure meds, etc) meant that people’s healthy lifespan generally expanded, even as they lived longer. Aging researchers call this best-case scenario “compression of morbidity”—meaning we delay the onset of disease and disability even faster than the years of life we are adding. During my 20+ year research career, we could generally bank on the idea that younger generations would not only live longer but also keep getting healthier along the way. “60 is the new 50” as they say… Enter “Generational Health Drift” Sadly, this expectation of steady progress may be changing. You’ve probably heard that US life expectancy gains have slowed to a crawl in the past couple of decades. Mortality improvements are also slowing (though less dramatically) in many other high-income countries (you can read more about that in a review paper I wrote here). Mortality is a very blunt health measure, but it is often a good barometer for the broader population health trends happening underneath. And we are now seeing that younger generations may be in worse health at similar ages compared to earlier born cohorts. My collaborator Prof. George Ploubidis at University College London coined this worsening health in more recently born cohorts “generational health drift.” “Generational health drift” is bad news on multiple fronts. Most obviously, we don’t want our health progress to go backward. But the timing is also bad, since our populations are aging. In demographic terms, “population aging” means that the proportion of the population at older ages (i.e >65 years) is increasing. Fun demography fact: Current population aging is not due to the recent declines in the birth rates making the news, but declines in fertility decades ago, after the “baby boom.” As baby boomers reach older ages, the smaller cohorts behind them mean the percentage of older adults will increase. For example, the share of the population age 65 and older in the US increased from 12.4% in 2004 to 18.0% in 2024. This story of population aging was written long ago. Many worry that population aging will put pressure on health care and pension systems. But if people reach older ages in better health than in years past, those fiscal pressures would be less dire than projected. Healthy older people can also continue to contribute to society in many valuable ways, including paid work, caregiving, community service….even high political office 🤷. On the flip side, if younger generations reach retirement age in worse health and with more disabling conditions, this could magnify the societal challenge of population aging. Evidence for worsening generational health A recent paper that I LOVED in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dr. Leah Abrams and colleagues examined which birth cohorts (aka generations) were behind worsening US mortality. Behold the Lexis diagram (cue swooning demographers). Calendar time is on the x-axis, age on the y-axis. Birth cohorts can be followed over time as they age on the diagonal lines moving up and to the right. This figure plots the year-on-year % change in all-cause mortality at a given age. Green shading indicates mortality improvements over time, white is stagnation, and gray shading indicates worsening mortality. Following the diagonal line for those born in 1950, you can see a noticeable shift from green to gray that follows this cohort for most of their lives. This gray shading shows generally worsening mortality for the 1950 to 1959 birth cohorts compared to their predecessors across all ages. Concerningly for my GenX and elder millennial peeps, there was also a deterioration in mortality for birth cohorts born in the 1970s and 1980s, visible as dark gray areas at ages 30 to 45 during the 2010s. While some of these mortality changes reflect specific shocks such as the opioid epidemic, most deaths still occur from major causes of death such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. For cancer, the gray in the top left corner of the figure below reflects the legacies of smoking for older cohorts, followed by a period of green with improvements in cancer mortality as smoking rates declined. But the white/gray shading in the bottom right corner highlights a stagnation and reversal of the cancer trends, with cohorts born around 1970 to 1985 experiencing worsening cancer mortality. This deterioration was most noticeable for colon cancer mortality, possibly linked to obesity or dietary factors. Not just dying more, but less healthy along the way. A recent paper by Dr. Laura Gimeno of University College London (of which I am a co-author), found evidence that more recently born cohorts in Great Britain have stagnating or worsening health. A stylized picture of what“generational health drift” might look like: The review paper found: Rates of childhood overweight and obesity were highest among Gen Z. Rates of diabetes in the 40s almost doubled from 3.1% among the Baby Boomers to 5.9% in Generation X. Gen Z reported higher rates of poor mental health in adolescence compared to earlier-born groups. These UK results are consistent with studies showing worsening health across generations in the US as well. A 2021 US study found that more recently born cohorts had worse biological markers (like blood pressure and blood sugar) than earlier generations at the same age. A separate 2022 study of Americans aged 50 and over found that more recently born generations had a higher number of chronic diseases, with younger age of disease onset. A 2024 Lancet paper found that in the US, women born in 1945 had 33% obesity prevalence at age 50, rising to 48.2% for women born in 1970 turning 50. So what’s going on, and can we turn it around? We don’t have a definitive answer for what’s causing the deteriorating health of younger cohorts, but circumstantial evidence points to worsening trends in obesity and diabetes in both the US and UK. Remember that cohort trends reflect lagged effects of early environments, and younger generations have faced both earlier onset and more severe obesity across their lifetimes. Despite these very concerning trends, the future is not set in stone. We’ve reversed poor generational health trends before: drops in smoking are a major reason cancer and heart disease deaths fell so dramatically in recent decades. GLP-1 drugs may finally turn the tide against rising rates of obesity and diabetes, though it is still early days. But things could also get worse…for example from a return to higher levels of childhood infectious diseases that can have a lasting impact on health. See for example: [ ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) [ Don’t You Forget About Me(asles): The Virus That Erases Immune Memory ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) Jenn Dowd, PhD · March 24, 2025 [ Read full story ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) Even as an optimist, emerging data on the “generational health drift” has my full attention. For most of my research career, we took it for granted that each generation would be healthier than the last. But if present trends continue, **50 could be the new 60….**and Gen Z celebrities will soon look older than Paul Rudd :). Stay well, Jenn Share the Health! If you found this post useful, please share it with a friend. Share
'Begin Again' review: 2013 film gets musical makeover at Old Globe
San Diego's Old Globe presents the world premiere musical 'Begin Again,' based on the 2013 film by John Carney, with a book by Jenna Clark Embrey and Molly Beach Murphy and music and lyrics by Pat Monahan and the band Train (Jerry Becker and Matt Musty).
Bruins vs. Flyers PRESEASON PREVIEW:
Just the Facts What happened last game? The Bruins played a tight game where Jake Schmaltz and Charlie McAvoy scored, and it went to the shootout with James Hagens once again stepping in to play the hero. Bruins WIN 3-2! Mike DiPietro also had a huge game for your Boston Bruins, as he stopped 30 […]
Indiana Pacers season preview: Lineup, roster and prediction
The Indiana Pacers are poised to be NBA Finals contenders after a one-year hiatus following the Achilles injury suffered by star Tyrese Haliburton.
How lip-syncing to AI let Forced Entertainment ‘play the game of theatre’
Today we have a fascinating piece by long-time Forced Entertainment fan Ben Kulvichit, speaking to Tim Etchells about their latest show Cold Sweat, how they are integrating lip-sync and AI voices into their work, the question of ‘authenticity’ on stage, and how lip-sync has even opened the door for them to make “something a little bit like drama”. This piece is a paid partnership with the Southbank Centre, where you can see Cold Sweat next month – we’re very grateful to the Southbank Centre for their ongoing support for Exeunt. Holly Williams ‘It was immediately interesting and uncanny’ **By Ben Kulvichit** “Is the microphone on?” So goes one of the opening lines of Signal to Noise, delivered by a human performer lip-syncing to an AI-generated voice. The voice is American, cheery but sluggish, slowed down into a gelatinous drawl. It repeats ad infinitum in a farce of stuckness; an answer never materialises. I find myself asking the same question as I hop on a Google Meet call with Tim Etchells, the artistic director of Forced Entertainment. We spend five or ten minutes frowning at each other, muting and unmuting, me gesticulating in semaphore into my webcam, checking if I am coming through now, restarting the laptop. To Etchells, I appear exaggeratedly mouthing words, my voice missing. In this gloopy purgatory of broken communication, life imitates art imitates life imitates art. We try a Zoom instead. Forced Entertainment, the pioneering British theatre company who have been at the avant-garde of performance since the 1980s, turned an interesting artistic corner with Signal to Noise, created on the occasion of their 40th anniversary. The whole performance employed this lip-sync technique to AI voices; on the face of it a left-field move from a company whose identity has long been grounded in the earthy, immediate presences of its performers and its unassuming, low-tech approach to theatricality. The technique, however, turned out to provide the company with a “rich new seam” of artistic enquiry, and has now spawned a trilogy of works. The second instalment, Cold Sweat, plays at Sheffield Theatres, Southbank Centre, and Lancaster Arts in October, while the third part, Everything Must Go, has been touring in Europe and is slated to come to the UK in 2027. As is often the case with Forced Entertainment shows, the main conceit for this work didn’t arrive until quite late. They were “four or five weeks into rehearsals for Signal to Noise,” Etchells recalls, and getting nowhere. Away from rehearsals, he had been playing around with feeding “weird texts” to AI voices to see how they would cope with them – “basically for my own amusement” – and was compelled by the uniformly “serviceable, benign, good-natured” tone they would read in, no matter how poetic, fractured or experimental the writing. On a hunch, he brought some examples into rehearsals and the performers gave lip-syncing a go. “It was immediately interesting and uncanny,” he recalls, with the performers having to deal in the moment with the problem of mapping themselves onto another artificial ‘performer,’ which itself was dealing with the problem of a very human text. “Almost all the writing for these projects would be useless to us unless it was done in this way,” says Etchells. “We wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s too poetic. It’s too fictional. It’s too tangled.” But exploring lip-syncing along to the text has opened “an enormous reservoir of ways of thinking about writing and performing.” Subscribe to Exeunt, and get two in-depth pieces on theatre a week, direct to your inbox Subscribe Forced Entertainment have long been sifting through the detritus of popular culture, from daytime TV to end-of-the-pier vaudeville, magic acts and clown shows, to find frameworks for their own unusual entertainments. Lip-syncing, then, makes sense for them to experiment with. As a mode of performance, it’s wired into popular consciousness through pop stars trying to convince stadium audiences of their liveness, or those same voices as channeled through the made-up lips of contestants on RuPaul’s Drag Race, or movie dialogue spreading virally through the host bodies of TikTok users. For Etchells, lip-syncing is often about “approaching real voices and trying to take on their aura,” subsuming that original human presence into yours. “There’s a very basic, elemental sort of theatre magic to it, produced in this very easy way.” This broad approach resonates with instances of lip-syncing within contemporary performance, too. In works like Re-Member Me and Showmanism, performance artist Dickie Beau acts as a kind of spirit medium for archival recordings (this process of re-membering – as in, giving corporeal form to voices – relies on his masterfully precise actor’s technique), while Frankie Thompson is similarly possessed by a host of characters ranging from a nine-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg to Cliff Richards, all of whom she finds compellingly nauseating, in the exorcism ritual that is her latest show, Horrible Things. What’s different about Forced Entertainment’s use of lip-syncing is that here, there is no original presence to be channeled. The performers are instead taking on what Etchells describes as “the voices of nobody,” or rather the “phantasmic, aggregated echoes” of the many many voices on whose data the AI has been trained, and which are now conjuring into existence words they never actually said. There is a sort of mournful, empty quality to these voices, having “washed up” far away from the people they originally belonged to, to find themselves in stranger’s mouths listing objects, wondering if anyone can hear them and glitching in interminable loops. There is a cold, sad anonymity to it all. Etchells remarks that occasionally the software company he used has notified him that particular people are withdrawing their voices from the platform, instructing him to cease use of those voices. Using these technologies in performance certainly brings up ethical questions around digital rights, consent, identity and ownership, although in the grand scheme of things, Etchells is fairly blasé about it: of all the purposes someone’s voice might be put to without their knowledge, “an avant-garde performance is probably the least of their worries.” [ ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/frankie-thompson-horrible-things-essay-mental-health-compulsive-behaviours-pleasance-courtyard-soho-theatre) [ Frankie Thompson: How I manage my own ‘horrible things’ at the Edinburgh Fringe ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/frankie-thompson-horrible-things-essay-mental-health-compulsive-behaviours-pleasance-courtyard-soho-theatre) Exeunt · Aug 25 [ Read full story ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/frankie-thompson-horrible-things-essay-mental-health-compulsive-behaviours-pleasance-courtyard-soho-theatre) For the performers, though, lip-syncing to these strange, artificial voices is an odd task, requiring them to bend their live, human presence into the shapes produced by machines. Politically, it mirrors processes that are already at play in the continued computational automation of human life. Etchells brings up James Bridle’s writings on new technologies as a reference point: one example Bridle gives is of “chaotic storage”, a logistics technique employed by Amazon fulfilment centres whereby items are stored not according to traditional methods of categorisation or alphabetisation, but in a way that an algorithm determines to produce the most efficient routes for ‘picking’ based on customer purchase patterns. This appears completely random and incomprehensible to humans, with paddling pools sitting next to USB sticks sitting next to blowtorches, and so for the warehouse workers, the process of picking items becomes completely reliant on technology which tells them where to go. Our world is increasingly being designed not with humans in mind, but rather machines. As Etchells puts it, “technology malforms the space, and then you end up having to live in it.” Initially, Forced Entertainment tried their best to live in the world of machines: “I was in the it’s-got-to-be-perfect school of lip-sync,” says Etchells. But with their aesthetic being so tied to the failing act, the slipping mask, the shoddy costume, “it’s no surprise really that that didn’t last.” Instead, the performers got to enjoy being late for a line, or playing games with each other, “stealing” each other’s voices. Etchells compares it to the principles of ventriloquism, in which a free-floating voice unattached to a body is fundamentally discomforting and “sort of traumatic”. That discomfort is equally as alluring to Forced Entertainment as the satisfaction of precision, the pretence of authenticity only interesting if shown to be a pretence. Lip-sync has also opened up new avenues for the company. Having been allergic all their lives to Plays-with-a-capital-P, with Cold Sweat Forced Entertainment find themselves approaching something a little bit like drama. Rather than the presentational arena of Signal to Noise’s open white stage, Cold Sweat places us more decisively in a “fictional locale”: what appears to be “the aftermath of some disastrous party or backyard drinking binge” where three figures – family members, or neighbours, perhaps – are the last ones standing. “It’s all quite acrimonious and accusatory, everyone’s talking over each other.” For Etchells, this more fictional mode is “a door that we’ve never been able to open. We’ve just never really gone there.” Perhaps it is the technique of lip-syncing, an extra buffer of mediation, that allows them to venture away from the here-and-now without feeling that they have to commit to the “psychological claptrap” that comes along with acting; to be able to “play the game of theatre, without getting one’s hands too dirty.” As I wonder how else the impulses behind Forced Entertainment’s work have changed over time, it occurs to me that over the last ten years of new creations, with the exception of If All Else Fails, the company’s performers haven’t ever spoken on stage: there were two shows without any language at all, Out of Order and Under Bright Light, and then this trilogy of lip-sync works. Etchells agrees it’s a shift away from earlier productions, that were so often about “the actual voices of the performers and their actual presences. We had a lot of money, in some ways, on an authentic approach to what it might mean to speak on the stage.” But this sense of authentic presence itself had a fakeness to it; these days, Etchells can’t stand that mode of being onstage where performers “are here to be cheeky and witty versions of themselves. I don’t want to be charmed.” Pulling back into a more anonymous space has resulted in works that feel slightly sharper-edged, more brutal in a way. “All of these shows are post-Brexit, post-Trump, post-truth, post-everything,” Etchells notes. Speech, charisma, authenticity – these things feel politically loaded, and perhaps warmth and openness just don’t feel like the right tools to reflect the world we’re living in. “It feels like the space is closing down, and we’re trying to deal with the fact that the system, the structure that you’re in, is more oppressive and more powerful. It probably always was, but I think we’re just more tuned to it now.” Yet even without their voices, the performers’ distinctive presences – ones that many audiences have followed around for years, if not decades – still, inevitably, shine through as they physically navigate whatever unending task the system of the piece has set for them. They’re still trying to keep up with the onslaught of text, still running about, changing costumes, moving stuff around. The human is always stuck in the teeth of the machine, jamming the smooth, frictionless cheeriness of the not-real, gesticulating silently, trying desperately to communicate. Cold Sweat is at Sheffield Theatres, 2 to 3 October; Southbank Centre, London, 9 to 10 October; Lancaster Arts, 14 October [ ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/exeunt-recommends-the-best-autumn-theatre-2026-lives-of-others-standard-of-living-our-friends-in-the-north-lanny-) [ Exeunt recommends... the best autumn theatre ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/exeunt-recommends-the-best-autumn-theatre-2026-lives-of-others-standard-of-living-our-friends-in-the-north-lanny-) Exeunt · Sep 16 [ Read full story ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/exeunt-recommends-the-best-autumn-theatre-2026-lives-of-others-standard-of-living-our-friends-in-the-north-lanny-) This piece was paid for by the Southbank Centre. Such support helps Exeunt to keep publishing the most interesting writing, about the most exciting theatre. Interested in partnering with Exeunt? Visit our Advertise with Exeunt page, where you can get more information, download an advertising pack, and find our contact details.
The best and biggest games of September
From Silent Hill: Townfall to Control Resonant to Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, we review the best new games to play as autumn begins, ahead of the titanic GTA6 release.
The House Freedom Caucus has to transform — it could preview the GOP's post-Trump era
The conservative House Freedom caucus grew in prominence along side President Trump, now they are considering what the future of their movement looks like.
Wildfire Smoke Linked to Greater Health Risks Than Other Pollution
Wildfire smoke may pose greater heart, lung, and cancer harms than other air pollution. Read more about the findings.
Jiang Feng: The Unravelling of German & European Politics
A state election in eastern Germany has become a revealing test of the changing political landscapes of Germany and Europe, writes Jiang Feng, Professor and Chairman of the Council of the Shanghai Academy of Global Governance and Area Studies (SAGGAS) at Shanghai International Studies University. His analysis follows the decisive victory of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) (which has been classified as right-wing extremist by German authorities)in the state of Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September, in which it finished far ahead of its mainstream rivals. Jiang previously served as Minister-Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Berlin. The following article was published on 8 September 2026 on huanqiu.com, the online platform of the Global Times. On 6 September, the results of the state election in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, were announced. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), classified as far-right by German authorities, made history by becoming the largest party in the state parliament, winning 43.8 per cent of the vote — twice its share in the previous election. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which had governed the state continuously for 24 years, won just 17.2 per cent, its worst result ever in Saxony-Anhalt. On the night the results were announced, the atmosphere at the CDU gathering was unusually calm. There was neither shock nor argument, as if the defeat had long been expected. Several veteran party members who had spent years working in the state government said: “Defeat is not a bad thing. It is time to make changes.” This state election has not only upended Saxony-Anhalt’s political landscape, but also laid bare the deep tensions between Germany’s traditional party structure and model of governance, on the one hand, and an increasingly polarised society on the other. Its repercussions are already being felt at the federal level, making Saxony-Anhalt a useful case study of the broader trend towards political polarisation and realignment in Europe. Governing Difficulties after Electoral Victory The most immediate consequence of the election is a historic setback for the mainstream party order that took shape in post-war Germany. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has leapt from a peripheral party to the largest political force in the state. Its electoral base has expanded beyond the traditional category of “marginal protest voters” to take on the characteristics of a cross-class coalition. The party has not only consolidated its support in rural areas, but also attracted many middle-class voters and even members of the social elite with stable jobs, their own homes, and substantial incomes. It has thus evolved from a “protest party” into one with the potential to govern. Despite its commanding lead in the vote, however, the AfD faces an institutional obstacle to governing the state: the mainstream parties’ long-standing “firewall” against it. Neither of the two potential routes to forming a government appears likely to break the current political deadlock. The first would be a coalition of establishment parties, led by the CDU and bringing together the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, the Left Party (Die Linke) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) in a cross-camp government. In terms of parliamentary arithmetic, such a coalition could prevent the AfD from forming a government and preserve the outward stability of the traditional political order. Yet these parties are fundamentally divided over key issues including immigration, the energy transition, economic management, and cultural and education policy. Coalition negotiations would therefore be extremely difficult, and even if a government could be formed, it would most likely prove short-lived. More importantly, an alliance of establishment parties aimed at keeping the largest party out of government would play directly into the AfD’s narrative that “political elites are suppressing public opinion”. It could deepen perceptions of political unfairness, further strengthening the AfD’s political capital, and creating a dynamic in which “the more it is suppressed, the more people vote for it”. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate for state premier, has said that if efforts to form a government fail because other parties refuse to cooperate, the AfD will push for a fresh election, which he believes could deliver the party an absolute majority of seats. This points to more intense political battles ahead. The second option would be a coalition between the AfD and the BSW. Together, the two parties would command a simple majority in parliament, making this, on paper, the quickest route to forming a government. The BSW is the only elected party that has not ruled out cooperation with the AfD, and the two parties share some common ground, including on policy towards Russia. There is therefore a degree of political basis for cooperation. Were such a coalition to materialise, Germany would see its first state government jointly formed by a party defined as far-right and one with a far-left background, creating what might be called a “bipolar anti-establishment alliance”. Such an outcome would fundamentally break with the ideological boundaries of post-war German party politics. It is worth noting that even if the AfD ultimately fails to enter the state government, its roughly 47 per cent share of parliamentary seats would give it a powerful blocking minority. Without its consent, major decisions requiring a two-thirds majority — including constitutional amendments, significant budgetary adjustments, and state-level institutional reforms — would be extremely difficult to pass. Therefore, whoever ultimately forms the government, the AfD will be an unavoidable force in Saxony-Anhalt politics, with a direct influence on the state’s legislative process. Systemic Failures in Germany’s Governance Model The Saxony-Anhalt election result reflects a systemic failure of Germany’s post-war mainstream-party model of governance to adapt to rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions. It stems from multiple, mutually reinforcing structural tensions and highlights the existing political system’s difficulty in adapting to “an increasingly polarised society First, collective anxiety has replaced individual material hardship as a central driver of political mobilisation. The rise of the AfD can no longer be explained simply by poverty or social marginalisation. Its increasingly cross-class electoral base suggests that what is driving voters towards the party is, above all, concern about the broader direction of society. This anxiety about the future of the political community goes beyond individual gains and losses. In political discourse, economic anxiety has become closely intertwined with immigration, while immigration and refugee issues are, in essence, questions of social fairness. This perception turns conflicts over the distribution of social resources into negative assessments of governing parties, providing a broad social basis for far-right political narratives. Second, regional disparities and East German identity have undermined the strategy of addressing eastern Germany’s structural challenges at the regional level. More than three decades after German reunification, eastern states such as Saxony-Anhalt have experienced periods of economic growth, but their underlying economic structures remain weak, and household incomes and wealth remain significantly below those in western Germany. At the same time, they continue to face population outflow, an ageing population, labour shortages, and other structural challenges. At a deeper level, historical experiences — including the collapse of the former East German economic system, mass unemployment during the transition, and the westward shift of decision-making power over major issues — have left some residents with a sense of being “second-class citizens” and of being excluded. For years, the German government treated the “syndrome” of reunification as a regional problem to be gradually addressed at the local level. That approach is becoming increasingly unsustainable, as regional development disparities emerge as a core structural factor shaping national politics. Third, the erosion of institutional trust is perhaps the most decisive factor. AfD supporters tend to distrust establishment institutions, including parliament, government, and the mainstream media. Their concerns about economic security, pensions, and social fairness are significantly greater than the social average. Increasingly, their support for the AfD reflects not an expectation that the existing system can be improved, but a search for an alternative to the current political order. Such a systemic deficit of trust will be extremely difficult for the traditional parties to repair in the short term. Fourth, a generational shift in political mobilisation has amplified political polarisation. Unlike traditional parties, which rely heavily on offline rallies and mainstream media coverage, the AfD has developed a social-media mobilisation strategy built around “raising an issue — identifying who is responsible — offering a simplified solution — building a shared identity”. It turns complex social tensions into concise political narratives, rapidly channelling public sentiment into political support. The contrast on the eve of the election was particularly telling. The establishment parties, together with trade unions and churches, organised an offline march attended by more than 10,000 people, but its reach was largely confined to those present and to traditional media coverage. The AfD held a much smaller indoor event, yet livestreaming on TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms, combined with the involvement of online influencers, gave it a reach and mobilising capacity far beyond that of the march. The contrast illustrates how the traditional parties’ methods of political mobilisation are increasingly struggling to keep pace with a political environment transformed by changes in media technology. A Microcosm of Structural Political Change in Europe The shockwaves from the Saxony-Anhalt election quickly travelled beyond the state to the federal level. Calls for political accountability followed immediately after the results were announced. The governing CDU and SPD are now under enormous pressure, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil face an unprecedented test. Political polarisation in Germany is no longer simply a regional phenomenon. The post-war model of multiparty government by establishment parties is breaking down and being reshaped. Viewed in a broader European context, the Saxony-Anhalt election is part of a continent-wide wave of party polarisation, mainstream-party decline, and rising right-wing forces. Far from an isolated phenomenon, it is a microcosm of the structural political changes unfolding across Europe. Weak economic growth, cultural tensions over immigration, and declining trust in institutions are fuelling the rise of right-wing forces in several countries, challenging the liberal internationalist order established in post-war Europe. As a core member state of the European Union, Germany’s ability to adapt its political system and the direction of its politics will have profound implications for both European integration and the evolution of the international order. Subscribe [ Pekingnology China’s Germany watchers take stock of Berlin’s uneasy turn On 7 December 2025, nearly 50 Chinese scholars and policy researchers gathered in Beijing for the 2025年德国形势年终研讨会 “2025 Year-End Seminar on the Situation in Germany… Read more 9 months ago · 31 likes · 1 comment · YIRUI LI and Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.pekingnology.com/p/chinas-germany-watchers-take-stock?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=1151841) [ Jiang Feng on Germany's 2025 and beyond: no easy exit ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/jiang-feng-on-germanys-2025-and-beyond) Yirui LI and Yuxuan JIA · Jan 24 The following is an op-ed by Jiang Feng, published on 29 December 2025 at Shanghai Observer 上观新闻, the digital platform of Jiefang Daily, the official newspaper of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). [ Read full story ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/jiang-feng-on-germanys-2025-and-beyond)
Motorola shows off its Signature 27 flagship, and there's good news for audiophiles
Motorola has shared yet another teaser for its flagship Signature 27, giving us a glimpse at its full rear design, speaker setup, and more.
Newtown Restaurant And Business Appreciation Week October 16-25
The Economic and Community Development (ECD) office, in partnership with The Restaurant Week Company, will be promoting “Newtown Restaurant and Business Appreciation Week,” happening October 16-25. EC...
Eagles Get Bold Trade Demand After Brutal Showing vs Titans
For a brief moment, the safety spot didn’t seem like a position of need for the Philadelphia Eagles. Two weeks into the regular season, that’s no longer the case. After reviewing the tape from the Week 2 matchup between the Eagles and the Tennessee Titans, Philly Voice’s Jimmy Kempski made a bold statement that is […] The post Eagles Get Bold Trade Demand After Brutal Showing vs Titans appeared first on HEAVY.
'The Love Hypothesis' review: Does BookTok's beloved STEM romance get the adaptation it deserves?
Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman have chemistry (literal and figurative) in "The Love Hypothesis."
San Antonio VA plans fixes after OIG review of inpatient mental health unit issues
VA watchdog flags South Texas VA mental health unit issues: delayed bed reporting, gaps in involuntary commitment processes, and VA police video monitoring without policy or signage. Report makes 13 recommendations.
Local business owner says Somewhere Fest street closure is costing her thousands
A downtown Wichita street closure approved for Somewhere Fest has the owner of The FUN Venue claiming thousands of dollars in financial losses due to canceled events and restricted access
Beshear announces nearly $17M in federal grants for mental health, addiction services
Gov. Andy Beshear's administration has secured nearly $17 million in federal funding to support 988 crisis services, youth mental health and addiction recovery, his office announced Monday.
Rome Waterfront DRI Project Reviews New Proposals for Entertainment and Housing
The Rome waterfront revitalization project is moving forward as city officials reviewed new proposals for the area.
UWCL Preview: Bayern Munich vs. Manchester City
The FC Bayern Frauen begin their Women’s Champions League campaign against the reigning WSL champions.
Appeals court orders Missouri to use Trump-backed congressional map, setting up another Supreme Court battle
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Missouri must use a GOP-friendly congressional redistricting plan for November’s election but put that ruling on hold for a week so the Supreme Court could review the dispute.
St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates Series Preview
I don’t know about you, but I already miss baseball even though there are still two series to go. For the St. Louis Cardinals, those final 6 games of the 2026 campaign will be completed on the road with the first stop being in Pittsburgh starting Tuesday night. There’s little at stake other than pride, […]
NFL Monday Night Football preview: Rams, without Myles Garrett and Puka Nacua, already in big spot vs. Giants
Call of Duty YouTuber Launches Petition to Remove Skill-Based Matchmaking Following Successful Destiny Protests
Call of Duty YouTuber Tdawgsmitty has started a petition to remove skill-based matchmaking in the FPS franchise following successful Destiny protests.
Members of Congress push back on plan to create a commission of political appointees to review NIH grants
Several members of Congress voiced strong opposition about a reported plan to create a panel of political appointees to sign off on NIH grants
The front door is still a phone line: What voice AI returned at Virtua Health, Keck Medicine + more
Every health system, from a 15-location clinic group to a national system with tens of billions in revenue, shares the same overlooked front door: the
Alex Golesh previews Auburn's Week 4 game vs Vanderbilt
Alex Golesh has put the Florida loss behind him, and is focused on this week's SEC battle with the Vanderbilt Commodores.
The colorectal cancer screening number health plans have never been scored on
Follow-up colonoscopy rates after a positive stool-based test range from 24-75%, according to NCQA. Same test, same result, very different odds that the
‘Voices Unlocked’ fills St. Andrew’s Hall with science, song and support
The second annual “Voices Unlocked” event was held at St. Andrew’s Hall on Sept. 17. With its live music, resource booths, and speakers from the scientific community, the event aimed
CSPS mourns the loss of musical icon Duncan Sheik’s legacy
Duncan Sheik, the Tony- and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who crafted the music for “Spring Awakening,” died Sept. 17. He was 56.
Hussein Syed, RWJ Barnabas Health, Chief Information Security Officer, Again Honored as A CISO To Know Nationwide
Hussein Syed, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for RWJBarnabas Health, was honored by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of just 55 Hospital and Health System CISOs and Chief Privacy Officers to Know, recognized for his work defending the organization against cyberattacks, a critical function for every hospital and health system. Mr. Syed has been included on Becker’s list several times.
Congressional leaders warn White House against adding controls over NIH grants
Political officials are weighing the creation of a commission to review awards by the National Institutes of Health, The Post reported.
Matt Rhule looks ahead to Michigan State, reviews non-conference play
The non-conference slate has officially wrapped up; now Nebraska will begin conference play with a trip to East Lansing to face Michigan State (2-1) on Saturday, Sept. 26.
The state of pediatric restorative dentistry
Nearly every pediatric clinician surveyed this year expects zirconia crown use to rise, but far fewer are placing them today. A 2026 benchmark report
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Memory Performance Scaling
The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D set new benchmarks in gaming performance with its impressive 96 MB L3 V-Cache. But how does memory latency factor into this powerhouse's performance? Our latest analysis dives deep into memory performance scaling, and could change how gamers approach system optimization.
Can Andy Burnham pull a Mamdani on Trump?
As Andy Burnham gets ready to meet Donald Trump face to face for the first time, the Guardian's political editor Pippa Crerar and policy editor Kiran Stacey preview their potential showdown
Pat Fitzgerald previews MSU's matchup with Nebraska
See what Pat Fitzgerald said after wrapping up Notre Dame week, and turning ahead to Nebraska.
Hidden Deal Risks Pennsylvania Business Buyers Should Check First
Buying a business can look straightforward when the company shows strong monthly revenue and a loyal customer base. But a business can look highly profitable on paper and still carry
UN General Assembly meeting kicks off Tuesday: What to know
President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak Tuesday
Jays/Orioles Series Preview
Tonight the Jays start their second-to-last series of the season. Six games remain, with a mathematical chance of making the playoffs, but math occasionally lies. But a series sweep would make things a little more interesting. Anyway, they have three games in Baltimore: Trey’s last rehab start wasn’t exactly something to build our confidence, but […]
Series Preview: Milwaukee Brewers @ Philadelphia Phillies
Brewers wrap up final road trip in Philadelphia against potential postseason foe
Republicans target Las Vegas congressional district with help from Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ policy
Nevada has the highest concentration of tipped workers in the country because its economy is driven by the hospitality and tourism industries, making Trump’s “no tax on tips” poli...
Sponsor spotlight: Make banks compete for your business
Banks regularly compete for new customers by offering cash bonuses, higher interest rates and other perks. By periodically reviewing your options, you may be able to earn extra money while […]
Giants-Twins Series Preview: The final week (thank goodness)
Which team has been the bigger disappointment: the Giants or the Twins?
Stand Up for Science Warns of Trump And Vought’s Backdoor Plan to Seize Control of Entire NIH Grant Budget
Signals another attempt to let White House pick winners and losers in American science, undermining decades of peer-reviewed research.
Stand Up for Science Warns of Trump And Vought’s Backdoor Plan to Seize Control of Entire NIH Grant Budget
Signals another attempt to let White House pick winners and losers in American science, undermining decades of peer-reviewed research.
NFL Monday Night Football preview: Rams, without Myles Garrett and perhaps Puka Nacua too, already in big spot vs. Giants
The Weekend Review: Unbeaten starts continue!
Both Leeds United’s senior sides continued impressive starts to the new campaign with positive results on Sunday afternoon.For Daniel Farke’s men, a goalless draw with Crystal Palace extends the W...
If You Find the iPhone 18 Pros Boring, You're Gonna Love the 20th Anniversary iPhone
Forget the iPhone Duo; next year's iPhone Pros, marking the 20th anniversary of the iPhone, might be way more interesting.
Travel health insurance
Travel health insurance Do you have a friend or relative traveling to the Dominican Republic? Encourage them to get travel health insurance before they depart the U.S. to avoid possible medical emergencies becoming financial emergencies, too. Many travelers ask, “Why would I need travel health insurance–I have health insurance?” But your domestic U.S. health insurance may not work overseas. Hospitals here in the Dominican Republic often require payment in full prior to the patient being treated or being discharged. Some private U.S. insurance companies pay for overseas medical care, but usually only on a reimbursable basis, meaning you must pay first and request reimbursement later. The U.S. government does not pay for medical care overseas, and Medicare does not cover medical or hospital expenses incurred outside the United States. In addition, if the traveler needs to be medically evacuated for any reason, this is not covered by most U.S insurance and usually costs well over $10,000 USD. Travel medical insurance can alleviate this cost burden. Don’t let unexpected medical costs ruin your vacation! Please review more information here on Travel.State.Gov and on the Embassy website’s page on Medical Emergency – U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic.
In limbo: Nevada Salvadorans with TPS protections await DHS decision
Salvadorans with Temporary Protected Status in Nevada, some of whom have called the U.S. home for a quarter-century, don’t know how long they’ll be able to legally remain in the country.
Apple M6 Mac mini review: $300 price hike spoils a nice upgrade
The M4 Mac mini was one of Apple's best values ever. This one, not so much.
Apple Mac Studio (M5 Ultra) review: Huge AI and graphics power at a huge premium
At $11,299, the M5 Ultra's extra performance over the M5 Max model is only worth it for select buyers.
Apple Mac mini (M6) review: The best compact desktop is no longer a great deal
At $899, the new Mac mini loses the fun factor of the previous models.
Review: Olive Garden's never-ending pasta deal
I tried Olive Garden's endless pasta deal. I could only get through two bowls before I wanted to tap out.
Ligue 1 Review | Is Le Classique still classic?
Le Classique is supposed to be Ligue 1’s premier fixture. However, the contrasting realities of France’s two biggest teams, Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille, meant that Sunday night�...
Crime writer Kellye Garrett brings latest book to Coe series
Explore “Missing White Woman,” the latest suspense thriller by crime fiction author and former “Cold Case” writer Kellye Garrett, ahead of her talk at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.
2026 Brewers Week in Review: Week 26
Brewers continue to roll as the regular season reaches its final week
The Politics of Depopulation
The demographic crisis calls most of all for a new humanism.
Silent Hill: Townfall Can't Match the Stellar Reviews of 2025's Silent Hill f
Critics love the atmosphere and storytelling, are less impressed by the gameplay
North Carolina State Basketball 2026-27 Preview
The North Carolina State Wolfpack were hopeful that Will Wade would steady the ship after several so-so seasons under Kevin Keatts. However, not long after the Wolfpack was upset by Texas in the First Four game of the NCAA Tournament, Wade decided to return to LSU. NC State Basketball 2026-27 Preview While it was a …
Houston Rockets season preview: Lineup, roster and prediction
The Houston Rockets can be contenders again with Fred VanVleet back from injury to help make year two of the Kevin Durant era a smoother ride.
Toronto Raptors season preview: Lineup, roster and prediction
After waiting more than a month for the Kawhi Leonard trade to be finalized, the Toronto Raptors are now an intriguing team in the Eastern Conference.
Southwest Golf Ranch transforms into family entertainment destination with $3M expansion
A $3 million-plus investment in sports simulators, pickleball courts and other upgrades is transforming a longtime Warren County driving range into a destination spot for family activities.
Southwest Golf Ranch transforms into family entertainment destination with $3M expansion
A $3 million-plus investment in sports simulators, pickleball courts and other upgrades is transforming a longtime Warren County driving range into a destination spot for family activities.
The Recovery House by Derek Owusu review – a uniquely honest view of mental health
Writing from firsthand experience, the author offers an affecting meditation on art, mental fragility and faith
Whether you like it or not, celebrities have an impact on politics
The global groundswell of support for Macklemore’s pro-Palestinian advocacy serves to remind us that maybe celebrity activism really is that deep after all, writes Cheek’s Varsha Yajman. Subscribe In the last week, publications, podcasts, and influencers that have either rarely or never spoken about Israel’s genocide in Palestine have flooded my social feed. And it was all because singer Ed Sheeran and his team dropped Macklemore as his opener for saying “Free Palestine” on stage. Millions raised, millions speaking up in support of Palestine - all of this confirming my view that, whether I like it or not, celebrities do have an impact on political outcomes. And this is interesting when much of the time celebrity activism can induce an eye roll - I love to see Charli XCX pointing out a Palestinian flag in the crowd, but it’s hardly the bold symbol of allyship that some fans would make it out to be. But there’s a line between healthy scepticism and outright dismissal - and I’d argue that the latter lets the rich and powerful off far too easily. For instance, actress Jennifer Lawrence, once outspoken about her political views, last year told The Times she no longer believes celebrities have a role to play: “Celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. So then what am I doing? I’m just sharing my opinion on something that’s going to add fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart.” While it’s a narrative she might find comfort in, it simply is not true. Grassroots movements often garner worldwide attention when celebrities and other high-profile spokespeople bring a mainstream platform to their causes. And this frustrates me. We have had three years of a live-streamed genocide. Macklemore himself has been calling for a Free Palestine long before he booked the Sheeran concert. Yet it’s the high-profile fallout of the last week that finally seems to have made saying “Free Palestine” socially acceptable in the mainstream. It feels like the collective mood has shifted, where calling out censorship is now the obvious response - not just the business of ‘radical’ activists. To recap, Sheeran’s decision followed an ultimatum from billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of Gillette Stadium, one of the venues Sheeran was scheduled to perform at: either drop Macklemore as your opener after only two of the eight scheduled shows, or you do not play at any stadiums. Sheeran’s disappointing decision to stand on the side of billionaire-led censorship has ultimately seen a surge in support for Free Palestine. It began when all his openers and his backing band pulled out of Sheeran’s tour, in solidarity with Macklemore and with the Palestinian cause. It was met with an uproar of support from those who had never or barely touched politics before: influencers lip-syncing to Macklemore’s music, singers like Jack Antonoff singing “Free Palestine,” and publications and podcasts standing with Macklemore. And finally, we saw material support: Macklemore donated $1 million in profits from his two nights opening for Sheeran’s tour to several Palestinian aid groups and called for Sheeran and Kraft to match it, which they have since promised to do. We’ve also seen children’s entertainer Ms Rachel follow suit with a $1 million donation to Palestinian aid, and publication PopBase has donated $10,000. Anera, a humanitarian aid group working in Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, said donations since Macklemore’s announcement were more than triple this month’s daily average. The group’s Instagram page has also gained 8,000 followers. Macklemore far from the first celebrity to speak and participate in politics in the Western World. In 1924, singer Al Jolson supported Republican candidate Warren G. Harding for president, and decades later, celebrities such as Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, and Aretha Franklin voiced their public support for the Civil Rights movement. More recently, in the lead-up to the 2024 US election, ‘The Daily Show with Trevor Noah partnered with the organisation Power the Polls to recruit poll workers to address shortages- a problem disproportionately affecting voters of colour. The campaign saw 170,000 new sign-ups - 35,000 of which came directly through the TV show’s link - resulting in the recruitment of 713,000 total poll workers that year, an almost three-fold increase on the organisation’s goal. Alongside recruiting workers, celebrities in the US (where voting in elections is not compulsory) have made a huge difference by calling for people to register to vote. Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024 saw over 400,000 visitors on the voter registration site within 24 hours of her Instagram post. In 2023, Swift had urged her fans to register, resulting in 35,000 new voter registrations. Similarly, Ariana Grande promoted voter registration in 2019 by setting up booths at concerts on the American leg of her tour, resulting in over 33,000 voters registering. And the same thing is happening closer to home. This year, musician Jack River successfully called for government action to ensure creatives in Australia do not have their work scraped by generative AI companies. Celebrity as the mediator between the punter and the politician Celebrity activism isn’t just a feel-good news story - research tells us it actually makes a difference. By directing attention to issues affecting the average person, like voting inaccessibility or a lack of action on a genocide, researchers Alfred Archer and Amanda Cawston state that “celebrities can play a useful bridging role between political elites and the people they represent”. Alternatively, in a world where talking about politics is “not cool,” or where people lack exposure or knowledge to engage with politics, celebrities can act as an educational resource or an entry point into the political world - when they speak up about an issue, their audience gets exposed to it. Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival is a perfect example. Rodrigo partnered with twelve organisations focused on women’s issues, such as reproductive rights. These organisations had stalls at the festival for people to meet them and were also featured heavily on social media, giving their issues global attention and raising $20 million for the organisations. We have also seen celebrities at award shows such as the Emmys wearing F*CK ICE pins, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s treatment and detainment of people - generally people of colour. When celebrities speak up about political issues in public forums, they put the issue at the forefront of mainstream media, rally their supporters, and make it clear that, however much they disagree, the government cannot simply ignore it. Our over-reliance on celebrities versus our politicians As much as I love seeing my favourite celebrity use their platform for a good cause, there is an important question to ask: not whether celebrity activism is good or bad, but whether we should have to rely on celebrities. And the answer would, in an ideal world, be no. In an ideal world, or merely a just world, action on Palestine would’ve happened decades ago, climate change would be taken seriously, and most importantly, people would understand their democratic rights. However, that is not our reality. Only around 28 per cent of Australian Year 10 students reach proficiency in civics and citizenship. In the US, almost two-thirds of people under 30 say high school civics education didn’t prepare them to understand voting deadlines, how to research candidates, or how to vote by mail. When civics education is weak, our trust in these institutions and our understanding of change-making processes also decline. This is where celebrity steps in and becomes our main source of reliance. As Mary R. Connelly notes in _The Tartan, “_Celebrities will always be involved in campaigns in one form or another, but their presence is not what causes people to vote blindly. The lack of political engagement and literacy is what allows celebrities to wield their influence on the political sphere so impactfully.” About the author Varsha Yajman is the Digital Content Producer at Cheek Media. She is a youth advocate and lawyer with a background in climate litigation and is passionate about looking at the intersection between race, climate justice, and mental health. Thanks for reading Cheek Media Co. ! This post is public so feel free to share it. Share
IBR launches sixth year of Top Companies in Treasure Valley
Idaho Business Review and Best Companies Group launch the sixth year of Top Companies in Treasure Valley to recognize outstanding workplaces and strengthen culture.
Preview | Juventus Women vs Benfica
The Women's First Team are in UEFA Women's Champions League action, as they begin the 2026/27 League Phase with a home game against Benfica.Isaac Guerrero's side arrive off the back of winning the Ser...
Science Advances celebrates 100 years of electron spin from quantum sensors to dark matter
Special issue reviews spin physics breakthroughs and future challenges across semiconductors, dark matter and quantum field theory
Around the Big Ten: teams make statements as Big Ten play begins
Around the Big Ten is back as sports writer Conner Krumme reviews last weekends Big Ten games.
Why Replay Overturned Colts' Fumble Call vs. Chiefs In Overtime
A replay review kept the Indianapolis Colts' overtime possession alive against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night when it overturned the call that Laquon Treadwell had fumbled.
Young people are not snowflakes, head of mental health review says
Speaking exclusively to the BBC, Prof Fonagy says being young is much harder now than it was.