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Lazard profit plunges on elevated tax rate, financial advisory volatility
Investment bank Lazard reported a 91% plunge in second-quarter profit on Thursday, hurt by a higher tax rate and a drop in revenue in its financial advisory business.
Can a Madison summer camp get teens interested in science careers?
After two decades of hosting a camp, researchers at UW-Madison’s Morgridge Institute are evaluating the program's long-term impact.
Mental health intervention reduces aggression and reoffending among violent offenders
Prisoners convicted of serious violent offences were found to be less aggressive and less likely to reoffend following a mental health intervention which could save money and reduce harm to society, according to new research led by King's College London.
Horvath, Entertainment Union Coalition look for more ways to boost production in L.A. - Beverly Press & Park Labrea News
Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, 3rd District, met with leaders of the Entertainment Union Coalition on...
Why Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s is ‘hell’ for wife Tracy Pollan
Michael J. Fox is getting candid about how Parkinson’s disease has been ‘hell’ for his wife of over 30 years, Tracy Pollan. The actor was diagnosed with the neurological disorder when he was 29 years old and founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research.
New Ideas in Science and Research: 50 Years of Air + Space
As the National Air and Space Museum built its collection and its identity, it also needed to find its footing as a place for science and research. In the third episode of our four-part limited series 50 Years of Air + Space, we’re exploring the history of scholarship at the Museum.
What causes food poisoning? Symptoms, treatment and prevention tips
Thousands of people nationwide have become ill in an ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak. A Penn State Health infectious diseases physician shares tips on how to prevent food poisoning and recognize…
Reducing muscle protein activity strengthens bone health, study suggests
Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), or "brittle bone disorder," is a connective tissue disorder that affects collagen, a protein that makes up much of the body's structure. There are more than 10 different ...
5 projects at UW–Madison aimed at transforming science and energy with AI receive DOE Genesis Mission funding
The projects, spanning fusion to critical minerals, are among 278 funded awards to national labs, companies, universities and non-profits in order to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.
The first mom in space shares the weight of science
The “Once Upon a Time in Space” four-part series reveals the human stories that are often untold within conversations about the science of space exploration. New episodes premier Tuesda…
German FM, on Africa tour, eyes business ties amid US, China pressure
Germany's foreign minister wrapped up a two-day visit to Nigeria Wednesday as Berlin moves to deepen business opportunities across Africa amid a more isolationist United States and geo-political press...
Congo’s Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 1,000 people
At least 737 patients are currently in isolation and hospitals.
Esteemed Alumnus Brian Ruane Named Chair of the Zarb School of Business Dean's Advisory Board | News
Hofstra University's Frank G. Zarb School of Business has appointed Brian Ruane, MBA, ’97, senior executive vice president and head of Global Clearing,
Republicans say they'd welcome Fetterman as GOP eyes bigger Senate majority
John Thune says Republicans would welcome John Fetterman if he leaves the Democratic Party, as the senator's pro-Israel stance isolates him.
Inside the "We Buy Houses" Business
Have you ever gotten a text asking if you'd sell your house? Or maybe someone called out of the blue wanting to buy a property you didn't even know was connected to your name. In this episode of Entrepreneurial Shades of Gray, Dani and Chelsey sit down with Rhen Bartlett, CEO of Heartland Buys, to answer the questions so many homeowners have. How do these companies find you? Why do they target certain properties? And when does selling directly to a home buyer actually make sense? From inherited homes and rental properties to fixer-uppers and probate, Rhen pulls back the curtain on an industry most people know very little about. He also shares red flags to watch for and practical advice to help homeowners make informed decisions when they're approached about selling.
Dynasty Financial Partners's Latest Innovations
Houston-based registered investment advisor Americana Partners has stepped into a new avenue, having established a division catering to wealthy clients in the sports and entertainment industries. The new unit will serve athletes, entertainers, creators, agents, and coaches with support from former athletes, entertainment executives, and financial professionals. The division will offer wealth management services and other offerings, including income diversification, brand protection, intellectual property strategies, tax planning, and investment management. For clients in the entertainment sector, ...
Science Corp. launches Prima vison-restoring BCI implant in Europe
Science Corporation announced the European commercial launch of its Prima brain-computer interface (BCI) implant for vision restoration.
19 happy hours in Madison for sports, friends and first dates
From swanky downtown bars to tacos and tequila shots, find a variety of places to drink (and eat) more cheaply around Madison.
The iPhone 18 Pro's Rumored Camera Upgrade, Explained
Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are expected to feature a variable-aperture camera. The upgrade has been rumored repeatedly and would be a first for Apple's smartphone lineup, but what would it actually change for everyday users? An aperture is the opening inside a camera lens that lets in light. A natural comparison would be the pupils of your eyes, which open wider in the dark and become smaller in bright conditions.
Does the science of peptides live up to the hype?
Synthetic peptides are getting some serious hype, from fitness influencers on your FYP to people seeking new options for chronic conditions. And while the human body already makes peptides, like insulin and the hormone oxytocin, most of the viral synthetic peptides are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Scientists say that raises some big concerns about safety and efficacy. So ahead of this week’s FDA meeting to discuss seven commonly used peptides, we get into the science with health reporter Sarah Boden.Interested in more science behind health trends? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. It includes perks like bonus episodes, early access, archive access, curated playlists and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Synagie Unveils Geene 2.0 - BytePlus, SingData and FLY Entertainment Among 12 Founding Partners Building Trusted AI Commerce
Synagie, the flagship digital commerce and technology brand of Hong Kong-listed Synagistics Limited (HKEX: 2562), today unveiled Geene 2.0, a Trusted AI Commerce Intelligence Ecosystem (a SaaS platform) designed to help businesses move beyond isolated AI applications towards trusted, scalable business transformation.
CSP-Solano mourns loss of Kevin Thomas, health records tech
Kevin Thomas, a health records technician at California State Prison-Solano, passed away June 22, 2026. He worked at Solano since 2020.
Harmful algae bloom leads to health advisory for T. Howard Duckett Reservoir
Recreational areas will stay open, and boating and fishing will still be allowed, but cyanobacteria can bring risks.
Palmetto Sports Daily: SEC Media Days in full swing, more early football previews
On today’s episode of Palmetto Sports Daily, the crew recaps a busy SEC Media Day, plus more early previews of SC State and Furman football heading into 2026.
Harmful algae bloom leads to health advisory for T. Howard Duckett Reservoir
WSSC Water has detected high concentrations of blue green algae (cyanobacteria) in the Howard T Duckett reservoir, and has issued a health advisory.
Harmful algae bloom leads to health advisory for T. Howard Duckett Reservoir
WSSC Water has detected high concentrations of blue green algae (cyanobacteria) in the Howard T Duckett reservoir, and has issued a health advisory.
Oregon DEQ issuing air quality health advisory for Portland metro
Oregon DEQ issued an air quality advisory for Portland metro, Salem, Hermiston and Ontario through 8 p.m. July 22 as ozone smog rises.
Why have political double standards gotten worse?
Are double standards becoming the norm in American politics? In this episode of “Make It Make Sense,” Carine Hajjar and Brad Palumbo, an independent journalist and YouTube creator, break down the growing fractures on both the left and the right. They discuss recent Senate races involving Graham Platner and Abdul El-Sayed; the controversy surrounding Ken Paxton in Texas; and how media echo chambers, viral clips and conspiracy theories are pushing the country further apart.
Nominate your business for Best Places to Work 2027
Nominate your Madison-area workplace to be considered for Best Places to Work 2027!
Idaho’s Brownlee and Hells Canyon reservoirs under health advisory
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare advised to stay out of Brownlee and Hells Canyon reservoirs, citing toxic cyanobacteria.
Cyclosporiasis Outbreak: Cases surge across NC as health officials work to find source
North Carolina health officials confirm hundreds of new cases of Cyclospora in the past week as investigators continue searching for the source of the outbreak.
Automated Neurofeedback: Rewiring the Future of Mental Health Care
Mental health and addiction disorders continue to rise across the United States, affecting veterans, adolescents, families, first responders, and entire communities. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, nearly half of individuals with a substance use disorder also experience a co-occurring mental health condition. At the same time, healthcare systems are struggling with workforce ...
COVID-19 Linked to Short-Term Increases in Medicare Health Care Spending
Postacute COVID-19 symptom diagnoses, health care spending, and utilization among Medicare beneficiaries diminish within 3 months of infection.
Madisonville Community College partners with Google to offer free business workshops
This partnership offers a series of free workshops designed to help local entrepreneurs, small business owners and community members strengthen their online presence
FDA’s Review Of Peptides Signals A Growing Public Health Challenge— Separating Science From Hype
A FDA advisory committee will review evidence surrounding peptides. Experts are concerned there is a paucity of evidence to back their approval for legal compounding.
LPI Scientists Honored with Asteroid Naming by the IAU
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has recognized the scientific achievements of Universities Space Research Association (USRA) scientists Dr. Imene Kerraouch and Dr. Allison McGraw by naming asteroids (20452) Kerraouch and (20092) Allisonmcgraw in their honor.
Duran: Political Corruption, Personal Gain, Negligence, and Public Deception
It’s evident that the supervisors don’t want to recognize and/or prioritize saving lives of the infants, children, disabled, veterans, seniors, and critically ill who are trying to survive living on the streets in Orange County…
International Courts Against the Defunding of Climate Science? Revisiting the ICJ’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion
Introduction The first eighteen months of the second Trump administration have witnessed a sustained assault on scientific infrastructures enabling understanding of anthropogenic climate change. This has taken the form of cuts to national science agencies; freezes and dramatic reductions in grants to universities; and attempts to dismantle observation arrays and crucial monitoring stations. It has […]
Cyclosporiasis: the science, risks and red flags
What’s small, round and could give you explosive diarrhea? Cyclospora parasites. The diarrheal disease they cause is wreaking havoc on thousands this summer in what is the largest known flare up in the U.S. ever. What’s causing it and what can we do about it? NPR’s Joseph Kim joins host Nate Rott to talk about the outbreak – and how to protect yourself and your loved ones.Read more of Joseph’s reporting on cyclosporiasis here. Interested in more science in the news? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. It includes perks like bonus episodes, early access, archive access, curated playlists and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Dimitri de Vreeze helped build DSM’s materials business. Then he had to sell it
After more than three decades at science-based firm DSM, Dimitri de Vreeze faced what he calls the hardest decision of his career: selling the materials business where he had grown up professionally. In this episode of "Executive Decisions," the DSM-Firmenich CEO reflects on why the decision made strategic sense, even as it felt deeply personal, and how it shaped his view that success is not a finish line.
See the Full Org Chart for the McBee Businesses After Steve Sr.’s Shocking Decision About Kristi
Learn who Steve McBee Sr. named as interim president while he was in prison as the family reacts on The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys.
Steven McBee Jr. Breaks the Fourth Wall Over Business Dispute: “Get This F—king Mic Off Me”
Learn why Steven McBee Jr. erupted over a business dispute with Kacie Adkison on The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys.
Experts agree at landmark event that simulation should be built into health system
On 15 June 2026, over 80 representatives from simulation societies, ministries of health, hospitals, universities, international organizations, professional associations and industry partners met at the WHO Academy in Lyon for a joint event of WHO and the Society for Simulation in Europe (SESAM). Together they tackled a pressing question: how can simulation move from isolated initiatives to systematic integration within health systems? The consensus was clear: simulation is no longer a niche educational tool. Beyond training, it strengthens health systems by improving quality of care, patient safety, workforce preparedness, team performance and organizational resilience.Participants agreed the evidence for simulation’s value no longer needs to be demonstrated, but that implementation remains fragmented and too often dependent on individual local champions. Bridging that gap, they said, means both generating further evidence and raising awareness among decision-makers.Discussions pointed to a shared path forward. To achieve scale and lasting impact, simulation must be embedded in national policies, workforce development plans, education systems and financing mechanisms. No institution can do this alone; stronger collaboration between governments, health institutions, academia, professional societies, international organizations and industry partners will be essential.“At the WHO Academy, we see simulation not simply as a training methodology but as a strategic tool for capacity-building, workforce readiness and stronger health systems,” said Dr Bart Janssens, Unit Head, Health Learning and Capacity Building. “This event is not only about discussion; it is about moving from ideas to action.”As health systems worldwide face workforce shortages, growing complexity of care and rapidly evolving competency needs, participants concluded that the question is no longer “Why simulation?” but rather how to scale it, how to sustain it, and how to ensure it becomes an integral part of stronger health systems.Looking aheadThe event marked the beginning of a collaborative effort rather than the end of a conversation. Over the coming weeks, WHO and SESAM will consolidate the discussions, recommendations and priorities that emerged, with a joint WHO–SESAM report to be published soon.
A science PhD can be completed within 18 months
Supervisors should involve doctoral students with conducting, writing up and publishing experiments straight away, says Adrian Furnham
Tracker helps to understand New York prison release trends
The information is from the past 10 years including information on releases from January 2015 to May of this year.
UFC Freedom 250 Fails to Knock Out The Ratings
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) If UFC fans wanted one image to say, “Hey, Paramount+ is crushing it with their UFC rights deal,” I could provide that image. Here it is: (Reminder: this is my creation of the Nielsen Top 30, since Nielsen doesn’t combine the lists or include sports. I take all three lists and combine them. Some streaming TV shows probably have higher ratings than many of the films on this list.) Look at that! UFC Freedom 250 is number one! It topped the Nielsen “Top 30” list for shows and films that made the top ten the week of 15-June. So if you’re a UFC fan or supporter of Paramount+, that’s the good news for you this week. This program topped the ratings charts for one week. Everything else is bad news, or at least a huge caveat to that story, which I’ll explain today in the first part of this week’s Streaming Ratings Report—for the weeks of 8-June and 15-June—which is a double issue since I’ve been writing on a bunch of topics recently. UFC Freedom 250 is one of the biggest streaming events of the year, and super relevant to Paramount+’s strategy, so it merited its own article. Let’s dive in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of June 8th to June 21st 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Check Out My Interview on UFC 250 at MMA Draw After you read this article, if you want even more thoughts on UFC and Paramount-Skydance/Paramount+, I did a written interview with MMA Draw. They asked me to answer some questions about UFC Freedom 250, and I was happy to chat with them. Find it here: [ The MMA Draw Newsletter Did Paramount really overpay for the UFC? What the data tells us so far If you know the history of American television, you also know that combat sports is often a leading indicator of the future… Read more a day ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Nate Wilcox and Zach Arnold ](https://www.themmadraw.com/p/did-paramount-really-overpay-for?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) I never thought I’d need a combat sports newsletter in my life, but the good folks at MMA Draw publish an excellent one on UFC, MMA, pro wrestling, boxing and more, analyzing both the sports themselves and the politics, economics and antitrust issues that impact them. Check the article and their newsletter out! Paramount+ Has Its Best Sporting Event of All Time…But Was It Worth It? Before we look at the UFC Freedom 250 data in particular, let’s talk about what we can’t say. Namely, let’s start with the lack of comparisons. First off, I’d love to put a chart out comparing this fight to past UFC fights on Paramount+…but we don’t have the data. This is the first time we’ve gotten Nielsen data about a Paramount+ UFC fight. As far as I can tell, Paramount provided data for the first fight, but it was a proprietary datecdote (saying it had “an average minute audience” of 5 million “views”) and then, for two fights, we got the linear viewership numbers when they aired on CBS, but no streaming data. Everything else was crickets. We also can’t compare this fight to other fights/combat sports on streaming, in particular the MMA and boxing, because Netflix also didn’t use Nielsen to track those events, opting for TVision and VideoAmp, respectively. (This isn’t Paramount’s fault, but does still suck.) We also can’t compare to UFC’s fights that used to be on ESPN+, since we don’t have any data for that, plus Disney+ didn’t have marquee fights. The comparisons would not be apples-to-apples. Can we compare to past Pay-Per-View fights? Absolutely not. The comparisons would absolutely NOT be apples-to-apples. That didn’t stop Paramount+, though, who bragged that their UFC events have reached drastically more people than past PPV fights. Duh. Sorry, but I gotta make this point again. A basic tenet of economics is that the cheaper something becomes, the more people consume or buy it. That’s Econ 101. (Sometimes pundits call things “Econ 101” that are actually like Econ 210 or even PhD-level economics, but no, this is really like first or second class basic economics.) Yet I still see one analytics firm consistently say that more people watch films on streaming than PVOD proves streaming which means that the streaming window is more valuable than the PVOD window. No, it’s not! Same thing here. Pay-Per-View events back in the day could be really, really, really expensive! So whole groups of people pitched in to buy them. That increased the perceived value of, say, the Mike Tyson fight. Or a UFC numbered event. So yes, the fact that Paramount+ makes numbered UFC fights essentially “free” if you’re already a Paramount+ member means consumption will go up. Obviously. Same for Netflix and their boxing matches. They’re talking about fights that used to cost consumers, in some cases, $50 in 1996…which is over $100 in today’s dollars. Over 1.6 million people paid that to watch the Tyson-Holyfield fight! Again, streaming is essentially “free”. Or $10 to $20, depending on what streamer we’re talking about and what tier you’re on. No wonder more people are “watching”. (Plus, Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing also helps these numbers.) UFC Freedom 250 Did Well…But I Have A Lot of Worries So what can we compare the fights to? Well, the good news is Nielsen put out that the fight averaged 7.0 million viewers for UFC Freedom 250, which is a solid number for a fight. We also know the length, at roughly 4 and a half hours. (I saw different run times, but this seems to be the consensus considering it started at 8 pm, had a delay and then finished after midnight on the East Coast. If you assume a shorter run time, then yes, the total hours viewed would go down.) That means I have the two numbers needed to add this to my Nielsen database. And then…I can compare this viewership to the NFL: And, uh, not great. But also within striking distance, mainly because the runtime for this event was so long. I’d also add that this event had viewership equal to a regular season NFL game on streaming, but if anything, it was more comparable to an NFL playoff or Super Bowl-esque event. And you can compare viewership to the top football games on broadcast, cable and streaming, and it’s not impressive at all: We can also compare it to other sports that week, including the NBA Finals and start of the World Cup: Again, not great. The NBA generated roughly four times as many average viewers each game for its NBA Finals. The World Cup has similarly big numbers. Also, that’s just a tiny fraction of the 25 most watched sporting events each week. The NBA, NHL and FIFA World Cup had many, many more games racking up hours. We could also compare this to other streaming programs to get an idea of “is this a good investment?” and here is how it ranks compared to other top Paramount+ programs: The worry here? Well, unlike scripted programming, which has rewatchability, older fights/sporting events have very little library value. Very, very few people are rewatching these fights, especially years from now. Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers. Then, in their quarterly earnings report, they only ended up with 700K subs. Not great! They claimed they dropped lower-value international subscribers, but that’s why I tend to discount subscriber additions when they’re leaked to the press.1 I expect we may see a bump again for UFC Freedom 250, but I’d caution using subscriber growth so soon after these events to judge the success, since new subs with high churn (see Peacock) aren’t great either. Also, analysts often want to attribute all subscriber growth to their favorite/pet show, and that just doesn’t make sense. The biggest caveat for UFC Freedom 250 and Paramount’s very first UFC marquee event is that these could be high watermarks for the sport. UFC Freedom 250 had an incredible amount of earned media coverage compared to most UFC fights. I mean, it had wall-to-wall national news coverage in the lead up to the event. (The first fight also had a lot of promotion from Paramount since it was first.) Other fights could reach this bar—say the Conor McGregor return to the Octagon—but they’ll be fewer and far between. Was This Deal Worth It? All to ask: is this Paramount deal worth it? In this case, I think the UFC Freedom 250 numbers are more distracting than helpful. This fight did well and compares well to other top sporting events. But we know that the first marquee event was at least a third smaller, if Paramount’s own data is to be believed. And it’s likely the other fights are much, much, much smaller. And then you get to the paycheck that Paramount-Skydance paid. FIFA’s World Cup cost about the same for Fox, but clearly generated multiples more total viewership. (Though it’s only every four years.) The NBA is much more expensive, but until the playoffs, they likely didn’t pay for itself. Even still, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video likely overpaid. So, in that context, the NBA may be an overpay that makes the UFC look not so bad. But two overpays don’t make an underpay, to paraphrase the old cliché about wrongs and rights. And looking at UFC Freedom 250 as the likely ceiling of MMA on Paramount+, Paramount-Skydance likely paid too much. Share 1 I would love regular reports on subscriber additions by programs, but as is, it’s mostly leaked or rumored in haphazard ways.
Canadian wildfire smoke devastates Madison businesses during Maxwell Street Days
MADISON, Wis. — What should have been one of the busiest weekends of the summer for downtown Madison businesses turned into a major disappointment as Canadian wildfire smoke created hazardous
Everything New in iOS 27 Beta 4
Apple is continuing to tweak iOS 27 ahead of its September launch, and the fourth developer beta is available as of today. There are fewer changes than in prior betas, but Apple is still adding new features. TV App In the Settings section of the Apple TV app, there's a new Automatic Downloads toggle. Turning it on will automatically download the next two episodes of shows you start in Continue Watching. They'll be deleted when you finish the episodes.
For Madisonians about to rock, AC/DC salutes you
AC/DC rocked Camp Randall 25 years after the band's last Madison visit, with hits like "Thunderstruck" and "Highway to Hell."
Ubisoft teases Ghost Recon news soon after leaks
Will the long-rumored Project OVR be officially revealed?
Public Health searching for dog that bit child at Madison park
MADISON (WKOW) — Public Health Madison & Dane County (PHMDC) is searching for a dog that bit a child at Droster Park on Saturday.
Ghana Opposition Politician Jailed 20 Years for Illegal Mining
Ghana has sentenced a senior opposition politician to 20 years in prison after convicting him on charges linked to illegal mining, Joy FM reported.
Summer Health Facts vs. Myths: Swimmer’s Ear, Ticks, More
Dr. Jen Caudle, family physician and associate professor at Rowan University, joins TODAY to separate fact from fiction on common summer health myths like Seasonal Affective Disorder, swimmer’s ear, mosquito bites and more.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[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 December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). 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 four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed 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; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
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From ancient Greece to Nazi Germany, sport and politics have long been intertwined. Nevertheless, we still imagine that international sport can be kept above the fray and serve as a neutral arena where nations compete on merit alone. In this article, diplomacy scholar Geoffrey Allen Pigman argues the 2026 FIFA World Cup shows this is a dangerous illusion. When international sport is left entirely to revenue-maximizing private bodies like FIFA, it doesn't escape politics, but rather surrenders to its worst expressions. With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics fast approaching, the IOC must decide whether to learn that lesson or repeat the same mistakes. The largest and most lucrative FIFA World Cup ever draws toward its climactic conclusion amidst a swirl of controversy. Team members, staff, fans, and spectators have been denied their right to enter the United States to participate, and US President Donald Trump intervened with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to overturn a referee’s call that Trump believed disadvantaged the US national team. It is a moment to step back and reflect on what the purposes of international sport mega-events like the World Cup, and international sport more broadly, are, and what they should be. Does international sport serve public purposes? Is there a public interest? Or is it primarily a private endeavor organized by commercial enterprises to entertain the global public (and generate profit in the process), which is occasionally used by governments and leaders for raisons d’etat? Central to the idea of sport is the principle of fair play, which in the international context demands that games be free from political interference. However, it is impossible to separate sport from politics, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The most positive political use of international sport through the millennia has been to facilitate diplomacy. The use of international sport for diplomatic objectives has existed since at least the time of the ancient Olympic Games, around which was instituted the custom of the Ekecheiria, or Olympic Truce, between participating states to facilitate fair competition and diplomatic achievements by ensuring that participants could travel safely to the Olympiad. In his seminal work On Diplomacy (1987), diplomacy scholar James Der Derian characterized the objectives of diplomacy as overcoming alienation and mediating estrangement between governments and between peoples. One increasingly important diplomatic tool in the technology-infused media environment over the past century has been public diplomacy, under which governments and non-state diplomatic actors (e.g. transnational corporations) communicate to global publics about their international policy objectives and to shape their global brand image. Political scientist Michał Kobierecki, in his important book Sports Diplomacy (2020), views sports diplomacy as falling broadly within the ambit of public diplomacy, as international sport intimately involves the participation of global publics as spectators and consumers of global media. Diplomacy scholar Stuart Murray and this author, in a 2013 article, distinguish between international sport used for diplomatic purposes and international sport-as-diplomacy, which encompasses the range of diplomacy that occurs as teams and competitors, spectators and fans, and government officials all converge for international sporting events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. Diplomacy scholar H.E. Chehabi, in a 2001 article on US-Iran sports diplomacy, describes the interaction between spectators and fans at international sporting events as “people-to-people diplomacy,” in which relationships develop independently of governments and their objectives. Diplomacy by the aforementioned definitions is often unsuccessful. Moreover, all too often the tools of diplomacy may be employed by governments and other actors to thwart or oppose the objectives of diplomacy as characterized by Der Derian. Governments routinely use the tools of public diplomacy to disseminate propaganda, spreading misinformation in the attempt to deceive global publics about their objectives and to create misleading impressions about their brand identity. Within sports diplomacy, the term “sportswashing” has been coined recently to describe how governments invest in and promote international sport to create positive global public impressions of their nations and, in doing so, to distract the global public from their deficient records in areas such as human rights and democratic governance. Murray, in his 2018 book Sports Diplomacy: Origins, Theory and Practice, introduces the concept of sports anti-diplomacy, wherein governments intentionally use international sport to advance aggressive and nationalistic objectives. Obvious historical examples include Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to glorify his Third Reich and the 1969 El Salvador-Honduras football “war.” SUGGESTED READING The beautiful game made ugly By Emily Ryall FIFA argues that it is and seeks to be apolitical in its stewardship of international Association Football (soccer). FIFA policies governing bids to host the World Cup require uninhibited and non-discriminatory access for players, team staff, and spectators of all participating countries to host nations and venues. It became clear soon after Trump returned to power in the United States in January 2025 that Trump’s political intentions and objectives to limit non-US citizens from living and working in the United States and, in numerous cases, even visiting the country, would collide with FIFA’s host nation policies. Beginning soon after the start of the second Trump administration, US federal authorities imposed restrictions on entry to the United States of citizens of between 20 and 40 countries for any purpose, with only limited exceptions. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began arresting non-US citizens in the United States, including persons with and without legal status, holding them in jails, concentration camps, and other detention facilities until they were deported to their home or third countries, where they faced substantive risks to their personal safety. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, in an effort to ensure the most successful and lucrative World Cup in history, engaged diplomatically with President Trump in an attempt to facilitate entry to the US for World Cup participants. Infantino did all in his power to ingratiate himself with Trump, to the extent of creating a FIFA “Peace Prize,” which he awarded to Trump in December 2025 at a ceremony in the then Trump-controlled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the World Cup draw. The prize was an ersatz consolation for someone who aspired in vain to win the rather more prestigious and well-known Nobel Peace Prize. And in the run-up to the World Cup, conditions became worse. In February 2026, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a war of aggression against Iran, illegal under international law, under the false pretence that Iran’s government was preparing to attack the United States and Israel. During the US aerial bombardment of Iran, US planes bombed Azadi Stadium, the facility where Iran’s national football team trained. As the 2026 FIFA World Cup began, it was clear that Infantino’s efforts had been for naught: the Trump administration would not adhere to FIFA policies governing access to World Cup host nations. World Cup referee Omar Artan, a citizen of Somalia, was denied a US visa to enter the United States to participate in the World Cup. Trump’s government only granted US visas to Iran’s football team ten days before they were scheduled to arrive for the tournament. Numerous members of the support staff for Iran’s team were denied US visas. Iran’s team, which had been scheduled to train in Arizona, was directed to shift its training site to Tijuana, Mexico, notwithstanding that all three of their group stage matches took place at US venues. The US Department of Homeland Security only permitted the Iranian team to enter the US on the day before each scheduled match and then to return to Mexico immediately after playing. Members of Iraq’s and Switzerland’s football teams were delayed for hours by US officials at the US border, and an Iraqi team photographer was refused entry. Spectators and fans from Haïti and Iran were denied entry to the United States altogether. A large number of fans from a range of countries had their applications for US visas rejected. There were multiple off-ramps through which participants could have avoided the negative consequences of Trump’s decisions for the 2026 World Cup. Once it was clear that the Trump government intended to violate the established expectations for World Cup hosts, FIFA could have shifted the matches scheduled to take place in the United States to Mexico and Canada. The three nations were already designated as co-hosts, and host cities and venues had been selected. Once it was clear that FIFA, governed by FIFA boss Gianni Infantino’s dependent and dysfunctional relationship with Trump, would never consider this option on its own, it fell to the national football federations to act. The national federations, particularly some combination of federations of the leading contenders (France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, England, Germany, etc.), could have refused to participate under the US-imposed conditions or, at the least, demanded an ironclad agreement with the Trump government that FIFA policies on access would be respected. ___ International sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. ___ Why did neither FIFA nor the national football federations act to protect the interests of players, team staff, referees, fans, and spectators? In essence, the relentless engines of capitalism prevailed over norm observance, ethics, and fair play. The revenue interests of FIFA, sponsors, global media, and host cities won out. FIFA’s managers viewed hosting another World Cup principally in the United States as a veritable pot of gold for FIFA and its collaborators. FIFA has estimated its own revenue over the 2023-26 budget cycle, which includes the 2026 World Cup, at $13 billion, revised up from an initial projection of $11 billion, and 72% higher than the previous revenue cycle. Of that total, FIFA is estimated to have generated $8.9 billion from the Cup itself in revenue from TV rights ($3.92 billion), sponsorships ($2.69 billion), ticket sales ($3.1 billion), licensing rights, and other sources. A joint study by FIFA and the World Trade Organization estimates that the World Cup will contribute over $40 billion to global GDP, including nearly $14 billion in direct visitor spending in the three host countries (but principally in the United States, which hosted the lion’s share of the matches). The FIFA World Cup is now reportedly “the single most lucrative recurring commercial property in global sport.” And yet, notwithstanding the Trump government’s uses of the World Cup for sports anti-diplomacy, and the climate of anxiety that this created for participants and spectators, diplomacy that did not depend upon governments was able to thrive at the World Cup. Examples of successful people-to-people diplomacy were legion, as citizens of towns and cities across the States, as well as in Mexico and Canada, welcomed team members, their families and supporters, to training sites across North America. Fans of different teams joined together in person in stadiums for matches, at watch parties and bars, and at welcome events sponsored by host cities. The joy and camaraderie shared between the citizenry of Boston and Scotland’s “Tartan Army” of fans is but one example of how the “Beautiful Game” brings people together. Friendships forged across continents are likely to endure well beyond the Cup final. Even those achievements cannot be seen as unalloyed, however. As South African football fan Byron Pillay commented to Al Jazeera, “Football is called the Beautiful Game for a reason, for its ability to unite people. But it’s hard to believe in that magic with the politics and war rhetoric off the field of play, especially when one of the tournament hosts is central to that.” Ultimately, the experience of the 2026 FIFA World Cup illustrates that, as international sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. As long as there is the possibility of diplomatic progress in mediating estrangement between governments or between peoples, there is a broad and overarching public interest in international sport. Likewise, as it would be difficult to put on an international sport mega-event without international sporting organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), global media firms, and companies purchasing sponsorships, public and private interests in international sport must coexist, most likely somewhere on a shifting spectrum between partnership and rivalry or cross purposes. As the World Cup wraps up, the IOC needs to consider its lessons before the scheduled 2028 Los Angeles Olympics if they want to avoid a media-hyped Trump version of the 1936 Berlin Olympiad. The IOC and the National Olympic Committees need to set conditions on and make demands of Trump’s government with clearly articulated consequences for non-compliance, up to and including cancellation of the Games. Time is running out for the IOC, as unlike with the FIFA World Cup, there is no at-the-ready alternate venue for Los Angeles.
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