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iOS 26.4.2: Apple Fixes iPhone Flaw Used By FBI To Read Deleted Messages
Apple has released a new iPhone update — that has taken many by surprise — to address a vulnerability that was recently exploited by the FBI.
Weekend Entertainment | Jo Dee Messina Is Back
Country music veteran Jo Dee Messina hasn’t released a full-length studio album in a dozen years, but that’s about to change.
Big Health System CEOs to Testify Before Congress as Health Care Costs Continue to Skyrocket
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee announced a hearing next week with hospital system CEOs, Families USA, the longtime national nonpartisan health care consumer advocacy organization, released the following statement by its executive director, Anthony Wright: “The CEOs of the big hospital chains have some explaining to do […]
Android 17 isn't out yet, but Google is already testing its first big update
Google has released Android 17 QPR1 Beta 1 for Pixel devices.
Republicans pressure Ron DeSantis to redistrict in Florida after Virginia Democrats’ win
Senior Republicans in Washington are ramping up the pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to lead a redrawing of his state’s US House map after Virginia Democrats triumphed in potentially flipping four seats in their favor. A special session to consider redistricting in Florida is slated to start Tuesday, but no map has been publicly released. A DeSantis spokesperson did not respond to a CNN inquiry about its status. Key Republicans involved in redistricting say they’ve been kept largely in the dark on DeSantis’ plans. There’s no coordination on the state level because of strict state rules around partisan gerrymandering, and no maps have been officially circulated within Florida’s congressional delegation either.
Crimson Desert Gets Its Biggest Patch Yet, Adds Difficulty Settings, Much-Needed Storage Improvements, and Even Birds as Pets
Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has released update 1.04.00, which makes significant improvements to the game. Chief among them is the addition of difficulty settings, new storage improvements, new pets, keyboard/mouse and controller preset options, new category tabs for the inventory, new skills, improvements to distant scenery quality, and a lot more.
Google Releases Android 17 QPR1 Beta 1 for Pixel
Google surprised us a bit this afternoon with the release of Android 17 QPR1 Beta 1 for its Pixel line-up. This update will come after the first stable build of Android 17 is released, which...
WHO reports measurable health impact in 2025 amid transition to new strategy
The World Health Organization (WHO) today released its Results Report, highlighting measurable improvements in people’s health worldwide in 2025, despite funding cuts affecting both the organization and the broader global health sector.
Ingrid's movelist and mechanics details revealed for Street Fighter 6 with her unique Sun Crest abilities and tons of attacks
After waiting 10 months since her initial reveal, Ingrid just received her gameplay trailer for Street Fighter 6, but that's not all we got to dig into.Capcom also just released a bunch of additional details on Ingrid's ...
iOS 26.4.2 Patches Flaw That Let FBI Extract Deleted Signal Messages
The iOS 26.4.2, iPadOS 26.4.2, iOS 18.7.8, and iPadOS 18.7.8 updates that Apple released today address a security vulnerability that the FBI recently used to extract Signal message previews from an iPhone even after the app was deleted. A flaw with notification services allowed notifications that were supposed to be deleted to be retained on an iPhone or iPad. Apple says it fixed the logging issue with improved data redaction.
Apple Releases iOS 26.4.2 and iPadOS 26.4.2 With Bug Fixes
Apple today released minor iOS 26.4.2 and iPadOS 26.4.2 software updates for the iPhone and iPad, respectively. The updates are available two weeks after Apple released iOS 26.4.1 and iPadOS 26.4.1. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings → General → Software Update. According to Apple's release notes, the software updates contain unspecified bug fixes and security updates.
Sayonara Wild Hearts, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Nintendo Switch 2 Editions have just released
Two more Nintendo Switch 2 Editions have just dropped with Annapurna releasing new versions of Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Right now we’re only seeing it in Japan, but it should be rolling out in other regions over the next day. Sayonara Wild Hearts now includes a Remix Arcade mode in which players are tasked with aiming...
AHA releases Q1 2026 Health Care Plan Accountability Update
The AHA today released its Health Care Plan Accountability Update, covering the latest developments in Medicare Advantage, legislation and regulation of private health insurers, as well as other resources from the last quarter.
AMD Launches the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition Processor
Today, AMD released the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition processor, the first processor that brings dual AMD 3D V-Cache technology to the desktop, unlocking a new level of performance for developers, creators and gamers. Built for demanding developers, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition proce...
Report: Washington State’s Life Sciences Industry Outpaces National Life Science and State Private Sector Job Growth for 5th Consecutive Year
Life Science Washington, the state’s industry trade association, today released its annual Economic Impact Report which reveals Washington’s life sciences in...
Remedy releases Control on iPhone and iPad with touch controls, reworked gameplay systems, and ray tracing
Remedy Entertainment has released Control Ultimate Edition on iPhone and iPad with custom controls, reworked mechanics, and even ray tracing.
WV’s shortage of psychiatrists worst in the nation, report says
Trilliant Health, a Tennessee-based health care analytics and market research firm, released its 2026 Behavioral Health Report in April 2026 and reported that West Virginia has 5.7% of the adequate supply of psychiatrists needed to serve the state’s population, which is the lowest percentage of any state in the nation. Brad Story, the CEO of the West Virginia Behavioral Healthcare Providers Association, said this is the result of several converging challenges.
Microsoft releases emergency patches for critical ASP.NET flaw
Microsoft has released out-of-band (OOB) security updates to patch a critical ASP.NET Core privilege escalation vulnerability.
Here's What's New in iOS 26.5 So Far
iOS 26.5 has been in beta since late March, with a third beta released this week. The update is relatively minor so far, which is not too surprising given that Apple is starting to shift its focus towards iOS 27. Apple will unveil iOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote on June 8, and the update should be released in September. iOS 26.5 lays the groundwork for two changes, including end-to-end encryption for RCS in the Messages app and ads in the Apple Maps app.
Bug & Bud Festival releases entertainment schedule ahead of April 25 event
Organizers of Milford’s annual Bug & Bud Festival have released a full “run of show” schedule, outlining a day of performances and activities planned for
Shaky political science: using "simulated" elections over real-world elections
[Dear DSOS readers – this article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in early December, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting. We found that many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data, and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first three articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report, the second one analyzing a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report, and a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research]. In this fourth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we shine a spotlight on seven studies that were web-hosted and funded by New America’s Political Reform Program and its Electoral Reform Research Group (the ERRG is an ad hoc committee headed by New America’s Political Reform Program and joined by the American Enterprise Institute, the Unite America Institute and Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law). This research consortium has been led by Lee Drutman, senior fellow with New America’s Political Reform Program. These seven studies are simply not credible from any objective standard about how political “science” is supposed to illuminate our understanding of either ranked choice voting or politics in general. The feature that six of these seven studies have in common is that they all used surveys – artificial, simulated elections -- to attempt to say something cogent or interesting about ranked choice voting (RCV) elections. None of them used real world data from actual RCV elections – either the 1000+ elections in the US or the many thousands of elections from places like Australia, Ireland and elsewhere where RCV has been used for 100 years. While a few of these studies conclude with some mixed positives about RCV, our analysis here is content neutral. The idea that, with a political reform like RCV, you can ask respondents in a mock, artificial election to vote with that method, with only the barest of explanation about how RCV works or its likely impacts (i.e. no spoiler candidates, majority winners, voters liberated to pick their favorite candidates, coalition-building), and then ask them their thoughts/reactions about voting in that system, with fake candidates and no real campaigning, no real exposure to an actual election or actual candidates, rests on some very puzzling assumptions. The findings of these seven studies actually are contradicted by the findings from many other studies based on real-world RCV elections. These New America studies also failed to list the real-world RCV studies in their own citations, instead including those studies that reinforced their conclusions. The seven studies featured in this article were chosen because they form a cohesive cohort which precisely illustrates one of the main points of our research paper, namely that using surveys, i.e. artificial elections, or mathematical/theoretical models, instead of real-world data, is in fact “shaky political science.” Below are summaries of our analysis of five of the seven New America studies. You can read our complete analysis of all seven studies at our paper, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting.” Choosing to “Vote As Usual” by Andre Blais, Carolina Plescia, and Semra Sevi. New America. (Blais et al., 2021). This study, web-hosted and funded by New America’s Political Reform Program and its Electoral Reform Research Group, used two surveys in which respondents completed ballots for simulated elections using plurality, approval, RCV and point (Score) voting. In both cases the authors provided the respondents with only minimal explanation of each method. For example, the entire explanation for RCV was “For this vote, rank the candidates from your first to your last choice (you do not need to rank them all). This is called the ranked vote.” That’s it. The study did not provide any context or explanation to survey respondents about why she/he might want to rank multiple candidates. Participants were not even told that ballots would be tabulated using an “instant” runoff, not to mention any description of RCVs ability to eliminate the spoiler effect or liberate voters to rank their favorite candidates without fear of helping the “greater evil” candidate to win. That’s like taking an iPhone back in time to 1970 and asking someone if they like it better than their rotary phone without explaining how it works. Their first survey targeted states that held 2020 Super Tuesday Democratic primaries and used the real candidates’ names in the survey; the second survey used fictitious candidates. In other words, they surveyed respondents who had only ever participated in plurality elections, had no history or background with using RCV or any of the other methods, had no clue about its likely impacts, and did not communicate how the alternative methods would be counted, and then asked them: “How satisfied are you with using each system?” Predictably, the winner was plurality elections, the system used for president, Congress, gubernatorial and state legislative elections – in other words, the method they have been using, year after year, all their voting lives. With so little explanation of RCV and its impacts, this study is simply not credible in discovering anything useful about real-world RCV elections. It merely shows that a basic voter education campaign is needed when adopting a new election system. Additionally, the result contradicts many other post-election surveys following real RCV elections, asking opinions from voters who had just participated in a RCV election, that showed a great deal of satisfaction with RCV (see details on that in Studies 22-25 in our paper, as well as the four studies cited in the review for Study 28). Share Other studies on “satisfaction” and “understanding” make similar mistakes, in terms of basing their surveys on inadequate explanation to respondents and lack of education about context. How could any survey ever hope to measure accurately, in essence simulate a real-world election, without actual campaigning candidates, the media writing about those candidates, organizations endorsing candidates and voters being inundated with crucial information? More than anything, what these “studies” based on surveys show is that if you ask voters about something they don’t know very much about, and fail to adequately educate them, their responses will unsurprisingly reflect their confusion. Equally puzzling is that New America’s Electoral Reform Research Group, headed by political scientist Lee Drutman, found this to be a credible enough study that they not only published it but highlighted it in Drutman’s own discussion of research related to ranked choice voting. This pattern was repeated in study after study featured by New America’s Electoral Reform Research Group. For example in Ranked-Choice Voting and Political Expression: Voter Guides Narrow the Gap between Informed and Uninformed Citizens by Cheryl Boudreau, Jonathan Colner, and Scott MacKenzie, the researchers based their analysis on a survey which found that respondents who were asked to vote in a simulated RCV election, with minimal explanation of RCV or how it works, displayed less evidence of being informed about how to use RCV effectively, with the least informed voters ranking fewer candidates. As pointed out under the study above, in a real election voters are informed by a wide variety of methods, including public education by the election administration, by interested political groups, the media, and the candidates themselves who benefit from voters being aware of how to vote in the new system. In Support for Ranked-Choice Voting across Race and Partisanship by Joseph Anthony, David C. Kimball, Jack Santucci and Jamil Scott, the researchers used respondents from different parties and races voting in simulated plurality and RCV elections, who indicated their satisfaction with each voting method. Instead of using real world election results, the authors fell back on the easy, armchair and less reliable academic research methodology of making up mock elections. As with the other studies, little explanation was given of how RCV works or what its implications might be (electing majority winners or eliminating spoilers, for example). Unsurprisingly, this study found that respondents were not very satisfied with RCV. However, when the authors added an explanation that RCV has a tendency to elect more women and people of color, they found that this greater explanation increased the preference for RCV. The more voters were familiar with it, and the more they understood potential positive impacts – surprise! -- the more they were open to switching away from the status quo. Of note, the results from this study are thoroughly contradicted by a number of other studies whose data was obtained from real RCV elections with real voters. Those studies show a great deal of satisfaction with RCV. More “fake election” research An interesting wrinkle on this “research by fake elections” approach, which only served to illustrate how unreliable such “research” can become, was taken in Ranked-Choice Voting, Runoff, and Democracy: Insights from Maine and Other U.S. States by Joseph Cerrone and Cynthia McClintock_,_ also web-hosted and funded by New America’s ERRG. It gets high marks for creativity, but an eye-roll for thinking this could possibly add anything meaningful to our understanding of real world RCV elections. This study tried to determine whether RCV, plurality or two-round runoff elections provided greater voter satisfaction and acceptance of election results. To determine that, the authors conducted a survey asking if voters were satisfied with a fictional newspaper report of an election, with three different versions given to respondents – plurality, runoff and RCV, with variations of Republican/Democrat winners and variations of “come-from-behind” winners,” i.e. candidates not initially in first place but who win the “runoff.” Again, a minimal explanation of RCV or how it works was given, and the survey showed that respondents had the greatest unfamiliarity with RCV than the other methods. The unsurprising result? Respondents were much more satisfied with “come-from-behind” victories in a traditional two-round runoff election than in RCV, even though RCV is also a runoff system but with a single round of counting. Interestingly, the dissatisfaction with RCV disappeared for those who were more familiar with RCV. In fact, among those respondents who were “very familiar” with RCV, they were equally satisfied with RCV, runoff and plurality. Surprise, surprise. Again, what this study revealed, more than anything, is not only the inadequacy of the explanation for RCV given by the authors of this study, but the failure of the research format itself, thinking that such an artificial mock election could somehow simulate what actually happens in the real world in a real RCV election. Those four studies reviewed above are fitting examples of inadequate and shaky political “science.” Other studies reviewed in our paper from the New America/Electoral Reform Research Group cohort which also used mock elections included: Ranked-Choice Voting is an Acquired Taste by Joseph Anthony and David C. Kimball. New America. (Anthony et al., 2021). Ranked-Choice Voting is No Refuge for Extreme Candidates by Melissa Baker. New America. (Baker, 2021). Also included in this New America cohort is Does Ranked-Choice Voting Reduce Racial Polarization? by Yuki Atsusaka and Theodore Landsman, which actually did use real-world election results data but applied an odd and unconventional methodology to the data which relied on shaky assumptions and non-real-world scenarios that were too divorced from reality. To determine levels of “racially polarized voting,” the researchers imagined “ethnic parties,” by which they mean political parties for each ethnic group, which was especially odd since the election data they were using came from nonpartisan RCV races. But then they made an even odder assumption, namely that since race and ethnic characteristics of studied voters were not available, the authors tried to infer that information based on who voters selected and the racial make-up of voters in each district. This amounted to little more than vague and ambiguous guesswork dressed up with a bunch of mathematical equations used to give it a veneer of scientific appearance. Indeed, it seemed to assume racial polarization in order to prove racial polarization. Based on this questionable methodology, the authors concluded that RCV doesn’t reduce racial polarization. But the premise of this study missed an obvious reality: since RCV incentivizes more candidates to run and can result in more diverse fields of candidates, one would expect more racially-polarized voting in voters’ top rankings, not less, because more voters would have someone on that ballot who represents their racial or ethnic identity and more freedom to vote for their real first choice. By encouraging more diverse candidates and eliminating the spoiler effect, RCV facilitates voting for a favorite candidate of your own race and then selecting a second choice with the best likelihood of winning. The real measure is what voters do with their additional rankings – do they consider other candidates and vote “for the best of the rest”? This study didn’t tell us anything useful about that. But readily available data shows this is common in real RCV elections, and candidates act on this knowledge by engaging with voters outside their racial group. So the authors of this study failed to consider or account for what actually happens in real-world elections, and their conclusions are tainted by this failure. New America has contributed a great deal over the past 2.5 decades to our understanding of many policy areas, including politics and political reform (full disclosure: Steven Hill, one of the authors of this article and of the “Shaky Political Science” research paper and series, is a former senior fellow and former director of New America’s political reform program, 2005-2010). So it was especially disappointing that New America funded and published such a large batch of dubious studies about ranked choice voting. The stated praiseworthy goal of its Electoral Reform Research Group was to inspire new academic research about ranked choice voting that would shed light and help the public better understand the impacts of RCV. Instead, the ERRG research did just the opposite. It produced dubious research that created more confusion and misinformation. In so doing, New America’s political reform program contributed to “shaky political science.” Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS, a reader-supported digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
Holland & Knight Health Dose: April 21, 2026 | Insights
Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy released a healthcare agenda to expand TrumpRx, increase price transparency and regulate pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
A24 sets 2028 release for ‘Elden Ring’ film. See cast, more
Released in 2022, "Elden Ring" was based on the worldbuilding of George R. R. Martin, author of the book series that inspired "Game of Thrones."
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.
Apple releases iOS 26.5 beta 3 for iPhone
Apple has released the second iOS 26.5 beta for developers. The previous beta introduced a new splash screen that signaled the...
2026 Canfield Fair entertainment lineup released
Tickets go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Friday, April 24.
2026 Canfield Fair entertainment lineup released
Tickets go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Friday, April 24.
Carlton player Elijah Hollands admitted to hospital after ‘mental health episode’
Statement released in wake of concerning performance and club asks for ‘privacy of family to be respected’
Alex Garland’s ELDEN RING in theaters 3.3.28 filmed for IMAX® with production underway full cast announced
Bandai Namco Entertainment and A24 have announced the live-action adaptation of the fantasy game Elden Ring, written and directed by Alex Garland, will be Filmed for IMAX and released on March 3, 2028. Production begins in Spring 2026, with the full cast announced:
20 years later, Nintendo's weird RPG Mother 3 remains the greatest game never sold
Mother 3, the sequel to Earthbound, came out 20 years ago today--but not in America, where it's never been released.
Galaxy S24 and Fold 7 get Galaxy S26 AI features with latest One UI 8.5 beta
Samsung is making good on its promise to bring new Galaxy AI features from the Galaxy S26 lineup to existing devices. It has released new One UI 8.5 beta updates today that include these features for several devices, including the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the Galaxy S24 series. The Galaxy S25 series has also […]
Microsoft releases emergency updates to fix Windows Server issues
Microsoft has released out-of-band (OOB) updates to fix issues affecting Windows Server systems after installing the April 2026 security updates.
Galaxy S25’s ninth One UI 8.5 beta update now available in India
Samsung has released the One UI 8.5 Beta 9 update for the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra in India.
Nintendo maintenance schedule - April 19, 2026 - DLC and virtual game cards impacted for Switch 2, Switch
Nintendo has released its maintenance schedule for the week of April 26, 2026: Technically two new sessions are on the docket, though both are happening at the same time. Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch will be impacted with DLC and virtual game cards, but the downtime will be short. Below is the full Nintendo maintenance schedule for the week of...
THQ Nordic has seven unannounced Nintendo Switch 2 games on their site
The official THQ Nordic site is teasing seven unannounced games which are scheduled to be released on the Nintendo Switch 2. There are no hints as to what they are and are simply titled unannounced…
Metroid Prime Remastered Studio 'Iron Galaxy' Announces More Layoffs
It released Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 last year
Microsoft released Windows 11 KB5083826 update for OS recovery
New dynamic updates for Windows 11 26H1, 25H2, and 24H2, as well as Windows 11 22H2, under KB5083826, and more, have been released.
Slay the Spire 2 roadmap suggests we won't get matchmaking but does promise "whimsy"
It's been a little more than a month since Mega Crit's hugely anticipated sequel Slay the Spire 2 released in early acc…
macOS 27 Will Mark the End of an Era
During its Platforms State of the Union segment at WWDC 2025, Apple revealed that macOS 26 Tahoe is the final major macOS version for Intel-based Macs. The upcoming macOS 27 release will be compatible with Apple silicon Macs only, meaning that you will need a Mac with an M-series chip or a MacBook Neo with an A18 Pro chip in order to install the software update. macOS 27 should be available in beta starting in June, and the update will likely be widely released in September.
Maya Tea steeps into the mocktail business
The longtime Tucson tea company just released a line of zero-alcohol spirits, joining a growing trend that's found popularity among Gen Z'ers.
Chico releases new ordered post-patch tier list for Street Fighter 6
Alex and the mid-season balance patch for Street Fighter 6 were released not too long ago. Though every character received adjustments, the meta hasn't seen that much of a dramatic shift thus far.Regardless, Chico was recently inspired to ...
Nintendo Releases Free Mario Game on Switch and Switch 2
Nintendo has released a new free Mario game for both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 via the Nintendo eShop.
Carrie Ann Inaba Hospitalized After Medical Emergency During Flight
Inaba has since been released from the ER and is recovering.
Apple to Unveil iOS 27 in June With These New Features Beyond Siri
Apple is expected to unveil iOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote on June 8, and the update should be released in September. Below, we outline some of the new features that are rumored to be coming with iOS 27, beyond the long-awaited more personalized version of Siri. iOS 27 will reportedly support 5G satellite internet connectivity, although this functionality might be limited to the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models with Apple's next-generation C2 modem.
AHA, others issue joint statement on workplace violence in health care
Ten national health care provider organizations, including the AHA, released a joint statement April 16 in recognition of Workplace Violence Prevention Month.
Microsoft Defender 0-Day Vulnerability “RedSun” Enables Full SYSTEM Access
A researcher known as “Chaotic Eclipse” released a PoC exploit for a Microsoft Defender zero-day, “RedSun,” on GitHub.
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.
A new Android 17 beta reveals plans for “Pixel Glow” light animations.
Google just released the fourth beta for Android 17 today, and now, 9to5Google and Android Authority point out that it contains mentions of a new lighting feature that we might see on the next round of Pixel phones. The Pixel Glow details say it “uses subtle light and color on the back of your device to inform you of important activity when it’s face down,” when interacting with Gemini, or when favorite contacts are calling. [Link: Pixel Glow 'visual feedback' tool might just hint at big Pixel 11 hardware changes | https://www.androidauthority.com/pixel-glow-3658443/ | Android Authority]
Democrats want the full 2024 election autopsy released — no matter the findings
DNC Chair Ken Martin told party officials he planned to release some of the results, sources said. But more than a dozen Democrats said they want to see the full scope of the problems.
Android 17 hits a major milestone as Google releases its last 'scheduled' beta
Google has released Android 17 Beta 4, marking the final scheduled beta of the cycle.
Second Stone – Galaxies Spring 2026 trailer
Publisher Headup Games and developer Skyward Entertainment have released a new trailer for action RPG Second Stone as part of today’s Galaxies Spring 2026 showcase.
NFIB small business optimism index falls below 52-year average in March
Small business optimism declined in March as profit trends worsened and uncertainty climbed, according to a survey released Thursday by the National Federation of Independent Business. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell 3.0 points in March to 95.8, dropping below its 52-year average of 98.0 for the first time since April 2025. The NFIB […]
Data highlights gaps in finding in-network mental health coverage
Americans across 43 states enrolled in health plans from the nation’s four largest commercial health insurers face potential disparities in finding in-network coverage for mental health care and substance use disorder treatment relative to physical health care, according to the Mental Health Parity Index released by the Kennedy Forum.
The Case for Pull Funding at the National Institutes of Health
The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal, released earlier this month, would cut the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding by ~$5 billion. This is a meaningful cut, though far smaller than the roughly $18 billion reduction proposed for 2026, which Congress ultimately rejected in favor of a modest increase. Whether Congress holds the line again remains uncertain.
G-Mode: Digital Devil Saga: A’s TEST Server Available Now on Nintendo Switch and Steam
During their 6th anniversary live stream, G-Mode have announced that Digital Devil Saga: A’s TEST Server will be released today
Angry researcher drops second Windows Defender zero-day exploit: “They mopped the floor with me”
A disgruntled researcher released a second zero-day Windows Defender exploit, dubbed RedSun, shortly after Microsoft patched the first vulnerability.
How Dangerous Is Anthropic’s New AI Model? Its Chief Science Officer Explains.
Just how fast is the future coming at us, and how worried should we be? Last week, Anthropic announced Claude Mythos, the latest in what has become the leading family of AI models. In a very short time, AI models from Anthropic and other companies have become shockingly powerful at coding. But Mythos stands out because it is not just able to write code that can hack into critical systems, like those that run financial companies, but also to analyze systems and find and string together vulnerabilities in them, allowing Mythos to evade even sophisticated defenses. Anthropic chose to release Mythos to only about 40 leading corporations, so they could analyze the model’s capabilities and prepare countermeasures, in an effort it calls Project Glasswing. The release of Mythos—and the prospect of similarly powerful AIs to follow—has caused tremors at the top levels of Washington and corporate America. Jared Kaplan, co-founder and chief science officer at Anthropic, is at the center of this breakthrough. We sat down with Kaplan so he could walk us through just how powerful Mythos is, what the implications are for issues like our personal privacy, and what comes next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Sean Fischer: For the layman, how is Claude Mythos different—more powerful, more dangerous—from previous models released by Anthropic? Jared Kaplan: I think most people have experienced the fact that our computers get faster and faster over time and over many decades. There’s this very smooth trend where every 18 months, maybe, computer processing power doubles. I think AI is on a trend in which it’s improving maybe 10 times faster than that. A lot of the earliest work that I did in AI was around identifying this scaling trend in AI. Claude Mythos is the latest model from Anthropic, but it’s not different because it’s qualitatively different. It’s really just kind of the culmination of the trend of AI models getting smarter and smarter at all kinds of general capabilities, from reasoning to software engineering to scientific research to knowledge work. For us, it was the first model to demonstrate very elite-level cybersecurity capabilities. It wasn’t because we trained Claude Mythos to focus on cybersecurity, but it was because, as a byproduct of its general intelligence and its general ability with software, it’s particularly good at identifying vulnerabilities in software and how to exploit them.
Butte County Public Health releases 2025 annual report, spotlights community initatives
Butte County Public Health (BCPH) has released its 2025 annual report, highlighting various programs at the department.
Footage shows moments before death of man Tased by NYPD
New body camera footage in the investigation of the death of Adrian Cevallos has been released.
TAX DAY: New Report Highlights Benefits of 20% Small Business Tax Deduction Becoming Permanent in Ohio
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, released a new report outlining the economic benefits and massive tax savings the 20% Small Business Tax Deduction will bring to the 1.1 million small businesses in Ohio now that it has
Pokémon Go Fans Use Government Maps to Hunt Snakes
Pokémon Go fans are wrestling with U.S. government geographic data to find a newly-released creature: Silicobra, the sand snake Pokémon.
Hades 2's second post-launch update secretly adds a new game mode
Hades 2's second post-launch update, which has been released alongside the PS5 and Xbox ports, has secretly added a new game mode to the game.
Burning Questions about Adobe Premiere Beta's new dedicated Color Mode by Scott Simmons
Just in time for NAB 2026, Adobe has released into the Premiere Beta what might be one of its biggest feature additions in the history of the application, in a new dedicated Color Mode. Color Mode is a dedicated workspace for color correction and color grading. It’s been designed with everything one needs for color [...]Read More... from Burning Questions about Adobe Premiere Beta’s new dedicated Color Mode
Business owners 'spooked' by oil price surge, national survey shows
A monthly national barometer of small business optimism released by the National Federation of Independent Business shows a dip in March.
Liverpool FC pays tribute on 37th anniversary of Hillsborough tragedy
On the 37th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, players, staff and club officials of Liverpool Football Club have been at Anfield to lay wreaths and pay tribute to the 97 fans who lost their lives. The club will observe a period of silence at 15:06 BST - the time at which Liverpool's FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest was stopped. After the silence, 97 biodegradable balloons will be released from the centre circle at Anfield.
Report: iPad Air to Gain OLED Display Next Year
Apple will bring OLED displays to its iPad Air models next year, according to a new report from Korea's ET News. Citing industry sources, the outlet says Samsung Display will begin mass production of OLED panels around the end of 2026 or January next year, with a view to supplying panels for Apple's next iPad Air, expected to be released in early 2027. Apple last updated the iPad Air in March 2026 with an M4 chip.
Trump phone gets new look, release date still unclear
There's no information on the website about when the phone will be released, and its "Made in the USA" claims have been further watered down.
Google rolls out April Android Canary build with experimental features for Pixel devices
Google has just released the April Android Canary build with new experimental features for Pixel 8 and above.
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“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.
In praise of popular science
As a kid, I was enthusiastically and unreservedly in favor of a manned space program. Our destiny lay in the stars, I figured. Get people out there. We need Star Trek here and now. As I got older, I became rather disenchanted with the idea. Humans are expensive, fragile, and inefficient as space cargo. We could flood the solar system with 100 robotic probes for the price of any single manned mission and get back just as useful data. Besides, it turns out space travel is dangerous. Tusk is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe When it came to the recent Artemis II mission, my cynical side didn’t really see the point. Flying around the Moon and back is literally something we did before I was born, and I once owned a Members Only jacket. Apollo 8 circled the Moon ten times and returned to Earth safely the same month that “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was released. What was the point of repeating a feat that far braver people once did with tin foil and slide rules? Yet I’ve surprised myself with how moving I’ve found the Artemis II mission to be. The photos have been stunning. The crew has been professional and engaging. There have been modest but important milestones — the farthest humans have travelled from Earth; the first woman, person of color, and non-American to leave low-Earth orbit; innovations in communication, and more. One thing that really stood out is that this is really NASA at its finest. Not that this is the most important mission they ever pulled off, but they did this in a competent way that celebrated the achievements and kept the crew and the science at the forefront of the project. This wasn’t some billionaire throwing celebrities or cars into orbit as a vanity project — this was a collective effort to send experts in to do a job and come home safely. We don’t see that sort of thing much these days. I’m guessing few people would describe many government agencies as inspiring, but this one counts for me. We’re living through a profoundly anti-science era, in which pathbreaking, lifesaving discoveries like mRNA vaccines are routinely downplayed or even vilified. As I’ve noted previously, this era is something like that of the Red Scare in the 1940s and 50s, in which “egghead” professors were portrayed as out of touch or even hostile to regular Americans. One of the things that helped break that spell was Sputnik — the Soviet communications satellite that demonstrated that the United States was falling behind in crucial scientific research and applications. Its launch triggered a new appreciation for American science and goaded the federal government into supporting research universities and labs. I’m not saying that Artemis is the equivalent of Sputnik, but it potentially reminds people that there’s some value to scientific endeavors and the human faces attached to them. Despite my love for the show “For All Mankind,” I’m far from convinced that there’s any real value to putting colonies on the Moon or Mars that would justify the capital investment and the massive health risks to the astronauts. But sending scientific good will ambassadors on a trip into space once in a while? Bring it. Share
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