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Star Politics: Can Hamilton beat Marshall in Kansas? Here’s the latest on Senate race
We’re exploring whether the Rev. Adam Hamilton gives Kansas Democrats a rare chance to snap their 94-year U.S. Senate losing streak in 2026.
Inside Marshall Wace's rocky credit push
Marshall Wace has seen several big names depart its credit team since Dan Shatz took over in 2024.
Surgery center to transition services to Marshall Health Network
Three Gables Surgery says procedures will transition to Marshall Health Network - St. Mary’s Medical Center and Marshall Health Network - Cabell Huntington Hospital.
College of Health and Human Development names summer 2026 college marshal
Elise Mitchell, a nutritional sciences major, will be the college marshal for the Penn State College of Health and Human Development summer 2026 commencement ceremony.
HD 10 candidate has yearslong history with White nationalist secessionist group
Marshall Rawson appeared alongside League leaders at a conference the local Republican Party had publicly repudiated.
Community science project aims to warn beachgoers of 'greenhead' hotspots
A unique kind of beast emerges from the marshlands of the East Coast each July.
Conservative firebrand who went viral with anti-CCP ad survives key primary
Marsha Blackburn defeated John Rose and Monty Fritts in the Tennessee GOP primary, positioning her as the likely next governor of the state.
Drunk driver crashes into business
According to WFFD Assistant Fire Marshal Eddie Mawson, the driver was drunk.
Franklin & Marshall\'s new course blends science and beer
Faculty members and staff at Franklin & Marshall College didn’t just gather to drink beer during a tasting event Tuesday afternoon. They were also grading science.
F&M Brewing Science
Rob Jinks, professor of biology, who teaches the Brewing Science class at Franklin & Marshall College, dispenses a New England Indian Pale Ale into a pitcher inside Fair Trade Cafe
How interpreter Caden Zane Marshall translates a show in real time
Marshall, a Chicago-based ASL interpreter who has worked in Wisconsin, shares why it’s key to have more than one interpreter at a theater performance.
Phillies' Brandon Marsh: Getting break with lefty starting
Phillies' Brandon Marsh: Getting break with lefty starting
Naji Marshall to remain trade-eligible despite extension with Mavs
Naji Marshall to remain trade-eligible despite extension with Mavs
Bannock County Fair returns to Downey with new attractions, live entertainment
DOWNEY — It’s called “the best little fair in Idaho” for a reason, and everyone is invited to join in the fun. A longtime Marsh Valley tradition, the Bannock County Fair returns to Downey on Monday, bringing six days of livestock shows, rodeo action, live entertainment, family activities and several new attractions to the Bannock […]
From the lab to the marsh, Georgia Southern students lead summer science research
As summer heat settles across the region, students in the College of Science and Mathematics (COSM) at Georgia Southern University are completing research projects from the laboratory to the salt marsh.
Phillies news: Brandon Marsh, Andrew Painter, Tarik Skubal
C’mon trade deadline, happen already
Computer science and engineering major named College of Engineering marshal
Ranjani Suraj has been named the summer 2026 student marshal for the Penn State College of Engineering. Suraj will receive bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science and engineering through Penn State's Integrated Undergraduate-Graduate Program, along with a minor in mathematics, during the University's undergraduate commencement ceremony, which will be held at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 15 at the Bryce Jordan Center.
Munetsi focussing on promotion, not his future
Wolves midfielder Marshall Munetsi says he will stay at the club "as long as they want me to be here" and is not worrying about his future.
Crawley and Brook help Sunrisers beat Super Giants
Leeds Sunrisers end Manchester Super Giants' unbeaten start to the season after chasing down 182 thanks to half-centuries from Mitch Marsh and Zak Crawley while Harry Brook chips in with 42.
More than 700 cyclosporiasis cases reported in North Carolina: health officials
WLOS News 13 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Asheville, NC and nearby towns and communities in Western North Carolina and the Upstate of South Carolina, including the counties of Buncombe, Henderson, Rutherford, Haywood, Polk, Transylvania, McDowell, Mitchell, Madison, Yancey, Jackson, Swain, Macon, Graham, Spartanburg, Greenville, Anderson, Union, Pickens, Oconee, Laurens, Greenwood, Abbeville and also Biltmore Forest, Woodfin, Leicester, Black Mountain, Montreat, Arden, Weaverville, Hendersonville, Etowah, Flat Rock, Mills River, Waynesville, Maggie Valley, Canton, Clyde, Franklin, Cullowhee, Sylva, Cherokee, Marion, Old Fort, Forest City, Lake Lure, Bat Cave, Spindale, Spruce Pine, Bakersville, Burnsville, Tryon, Columbus, Marshall, Mars Hill, Brevard, Bryson City, Cashiers, Greer, Landrum, Clemson, Gaffney, and Easley.
NC Secretary of State visits Whiteville to meet with rural small business owners
North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall visited Whiteville to meet with small business owners and community leaders as part of her Rural Rise NC initiative, which aims to help small businesses succeed in rural areas.
Amendment 68: New Opportunity: D.8 Habitable Worlds Observatory Precursor Science Investigations
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a large-aperture ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared observatory concept recommended by the National Academies of
Provincetown Carnival names whale-saving group as grand marshal
Center for Coastal Studies will lead the Provincetown Carnival parade in honor of 50 years of research and conservation in Cape Cod Bay and beyond.
How a rural health merger brought more care closer to home
The combination of Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic helps recruit physicians, improve retention and expand access to care in rural communities.
NC Secretary of State to visit Columbus County for small business roundtable
North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall is set to travel to Columbus County to meet with small business owners.
Science with Steve: Science behind dangers of deep frying a frozen turkey
KTAL NBC 6/KMSS FOX 33/KSHV 45 - Local news, Weather, Sports | Shreveport, Marshall, Texarkana
UMaine-led team selected for inaugural DOE Genesis Mission to advance AI in underground science
Beneath Maine’s salt marshes, an invisible transformation is constantly underway. Water moves through soil and rock. Chemicals react. Tiny microbes living underground help determine whether minerals dissolve or form, how fluids move and whether pollutants break down or spread. Existing computer models used to guide decisions about energy infrastructure and…
Marsh quarterly profit rises on strength in risk management business
Insurance brokerage Marsh reported a jump in second-quarter profit on Tuesday, as it benefited from robust demand for its risk management and consulting businesses.
Ernst Names Small Business of the Week, Taylor’s Maid-Rite
Read the release on Sen. Ernst's website HERE. Throughout this Congress, Chair Ernst plans to recognize a small business in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. RED OAK, Iowa – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, today announced her Small Business of the Week: Taylor's Maid-Rite of Marshall County. Throughout the 119th Congress, Chair Ernst plans to recognize a small business in each of Iowa's 99 counties. "Taylor's Maid-Rite has truly maid their mark as a cornerstone of Marshalltown's business community," said Chair Ernst. "For nearly a century, this shop has served generations of Iowans with a signature burger made fresh every day. This 'Maid in Iowa' success story has proven that consistency, quality, and genuine customer care are the recipe for lasting success." Founded in the heart of Marshalltown, Taylor's Maid-Rite has remained a family-owned business for nearly a century and is now entering its fourth generation of Taylor family ownership. Best known for its signature Maid-Rite sandwich, the restaurant also serves classic American diner favorites, including malts, pies, fries, and sodas. Throughout its history, Taylor's Maid-Rite has remained committed to fresh ingredients, personalized service, and strong community involvement. Stay tuned as Chair Ernst continues to recognize outstanding Iowa small businesses with her Small Business of the Week award. ###
Heat stroke, exhaustion biggest RAGBRAI concerns for county public health
The National Weather Service is predicting that Marshall County’s temperature and heat index – 92 degrees with a heat index of 101 – will persist and possibly increase on Monday. The high temperatures felt across the state will greet RAGBRAI riders as they start the journey on Sunday in Onawa. Once they reach Marshalltown on […]
AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 5:58 a.m. EDT
Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami, US Marshals Service tells AP
Only Cooper Cousins Until Penn State Football
We’re exactly 50 days away from Penn State kicking off its 2026 football season against Marshall, and today we’re honoring a person who is widely expected to help anchor the offensive line. After seeing playing time mainly on special teams as a freshman, Cooper Cousins saw action on the O-line as a sophomore last season, […]
Marshall Athletics Announces Partnership With Collegiate Sports Connect
Marshall Vice President and Director of Athletics Gerald J. Harrison announced a multi-year partnership with Collegiate Sports Connect on Tuesday.
Dr. Hillary Porter of Marshall Health Network named 2025 West Virginia Pediatrician of the Year
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Hillary N. Porter, D.O., associate professor of pediatrics at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and board-certified pediatrician, psychologist and child and adolescent psychiatrist with Marshall Health Network, has been named the 2025 West Virginia Pediatrician of the Year by the West Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics in recognition of her dedication to children’s […]
UW Health agreement adds Beaver Dam medical center to its growing system
MADISON (WKOW) — UW Health and Marshfield Medical Center-Beaver Dam have officially reached an agreement to bring the medical center into the UW Health system of care, according to a
UW Health Finalizes Agreement To Acquire Marshfield Medical Center–Beaver Dam
BEAVER DAM — UW Health has finalized an agreement to bring Marshfield Medical Center–Beaver Dam into its health system, a move officials say will strengthen ... Read more
8 Cool New Gadgets to Keep on Your Radar
Catching you up on the past week’s most notable product releases.
Deana Carter To Headline Marshall County Fair Entertainment Lineup
MOUNDSVILLE — This year’s Marshall County Fair, slated July 19-25, will include a performance by country music star Deana Carter, known for hit songs like “Strawberry Wine.” Carter is scheduled to perform at 9 p.m. Saturday, July 25, on the main festival stage at the Marshall County Fairgrounds, 1433 12th St., Moundsville. Opening for Carter […]
Yahoo Sports launches college fantasy football leagues featuring Power Four players and Notre Dame
How about Texas quarterback Arch Manning paired with Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith on the same college football roster. While at it, add Michigan tailback Jordan Marshall, too.
Marshfield Clinic offering free sports physicals July 28
Marshfield Clinic is offering free sports physicals for Northwoods student-athletes 4:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at Marshfield Clinic Woodruff Center, 1446 First Ave. (Hwy 47).
Marshall Football Has 12 Players Honored By Athlon Sports
Marshall Football had 12 players recognized by Athlon Sports as 2026 Preseason All-Sun Belt Conference selections, the magazine released recently. The Thunde...
Marshall hosts HSTA Fun with Science Institute for students
Around 75 students from across West Virginia are spending the week at Marshall University exploring careers in science, technology and health care through the
Former Cowboys DE Marshawn Kneeland diagnosed by researchers with stage 1 CTE
The former Cowboys defensive end died by suicide in November.
Wisconsin STEM shuttle program marks 20 years of taking science on the road
The STEM Shuttle, created by retired Wausau teacher Sharon Ryan, is marking its 20th year traveling to schools across Wisconsin. The program grew out of Dream Flight Wausau, a 1990 project Ryan developed while teaching at John Marshall Elementary School in the Wausau School District.
Why Kelly Reilly thinks Monica’s ‘Marshals’ death was a ‘missed opportunity’ in ‘Dutton Ranch’ season 1
Kelly Reilly is sharing why she thinks Monica’s death on fellow ‘Yellowstone’ spinoff ‘Marshals’ was a real ‘missed opportunity’ in season 1 of her and Cole Hauser’s ‘Dutton Ranch.’
Vehicle fire spreads to commercial business and apartments in Cambridge
The Office of the Maryland State Fire Marshal says a vehicle caught fire on July 3, then spread to the building it was parked under in Cambridge.
Five Phillies named All-Stars for 96th Midsummer Classic at CBP
Brandon Marsh, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Cristopher Sánchez and Jhoan Duran will represent the Phillies in the 2026 All-Star Game.
Marshawn Lynch, Edgerrin James bring back Ice Bucket Challenge to support Chris Johnson after ALS diagnosis
Mission To Boost NASA’s Swift Launches From Marshall Islands
A mission to raise the orbit of NASA’s Swift observatory has reached orbit.
Marshall Health Network first in West Virginia to offer histotripsy treatment for liver tumors
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Marshall Health Network–Cabell Huntington Hospital (CHH) is the first hospital in West Virginia to treat liver tumors using the Edison® Histotripsy System, giving patients access to an advanced treatment that targets tumors with focused sound waves instead of surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. The Edison Histotripsy System uses image-guided sonic beam therapy to precisely target […]
Video shows masked thieves smashing glass, grabbing items during Bowie business break-in
WBFF Fox45 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Baltimore and nearby towns and communities in Maryland, including Annapolis, Crofton, Glen Burnie, Linthicum, Pasadena, Severn, Cockeysville, Dundalk, Essex, Parkville, Owings Mills, Towson, White Marsh, Woodlawn, Hampstead, Sykesville, Taneytown, Westminster, Elkton, Perryville, Pt. Deposit, Rising Sun, Aberdeen, Abingdon, Bel Air, Edgewood, Fallston, Havre De Grace, Columbia, Elkridge, Ellicott City, Fulton, and Ocean City.
Match for the Marsh with Barton Health
We’re back with another awesome opportunity to transform the south end of the Upper Truckee Marsh, this time with help from our friends at Barton Health! Now that the California Tahoe Conservancy has demolished the former Motel 6 building, restaurant, and parking lot from the Upper Truckee Marsh in South Lake Tahoe, planning is underway […]
‘Grateful and humbled’
MARSHALL — Two individuals who played important roles in building the Marshall baseball program into one of the state’s best were honored Sunday evening with induction into the Marshall Baseball Hall of Fame. Steve Fleck and Blaine Schnaible became the 20th and 21st members of this select group during a pre-game ceremony prior to the […]
Making Our Own Luck
We are cross-posting a piece that former NIH official Kris Willis wrote for Macroscience. Kris is now the President and Founder of the Woodley Park Institute, for which I’m a board member. Picking winners or hedging bets? Federal science agencies have long wrestled with the question of how to ensure their billions of dollars of grants and contracts result in maximum benefits for Americans. On the surface, it might seem that a goal-oriented, interventionist style of management would be the best policy: prioritize our most pressing problems and distribute funding accordingly.This top-down strategy creates a unique hazard, though: bad choices can send resources in the wrong direction, resulting in slow progress that impedes the delivery of tangible benefits to citizens. Moreover, if decision makers pursue an applied advance when the underlying scientific principles remain poorly understood, they risk costly failures and a loss of support for the research enterprise at large. Examples include Nixon’s 1971 War on Cancer, undertaken on the premise that a cure could be achieved in less than a decade, the drive to build an operational commercial fusion plant by the mid-1990s, and the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, which failed to produce the effective treatments and prevention strategies promised by 2025. The contrasting laissez-faire approach is to hedge your bets. If the path to an advance is impossible to predict, then the wisest choice might be to distribute funding to as widely as possible. The main risk of this strategy is that spreading funding thinly may limit the resources available to the most promising research, resulting in the same negative outcomes as the interventionist approach: limited support for the most promising topics, slow progress, and delayed returns. In reality, at science agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, program managers navigate between these two extremes, setting some funds aside to target high-priority areas and using the rest to cover the widest possible range of meritorious proposals. This middle path seems like the most rational way to proceed, but it still requires making choices. How much should be set aside for high priority topics? What should those topics be? How should we define merit? Expert opinion can provide a helpful guide, but leading experts can have remarkably different opinions about what matters and what should be prioritized. Moreover, experts and administrators alike can be risk averse, giving an edge to high-profile, well-established concepts. What’s really needed is a data-driven framework to help guide decision-making, one that doesn’t simply repackage prestige or incumbency. Recognizing breakthroughs years in advance Many breakthroughs fail to attract funding or recognition at the earliest stages of development. Katalin Karikó, for example, spent years struggling to win grants for work on mRNA that would eventually win her and Drew Weissman a Nobel Prize. Similar stories can be told about Jim Allison’s groundbreaking studies leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy, Stan Pruisner’s demonstration that prions can self-replicate without DNA, or Robin Warren and Barry Marshall’s proof that Helicobacter pylori, not stress, causes ulcers. Yet at some point, the scientific community recognizes and responds to transformative breakthroughs like these. How does that change happen? And what if science funders could identify the areas that are on the cusp of a breakthrough? Those questions led my collaborators and me to study how scientists responded to past breakthroughs. Based on patterns in that data, we developed a means of predicting future breakthroughs, using biomedicine as a proof of concept. It’s worth taking a moment to describe how our approach works. Briefly, our prediction process begins by grouping the 18 million or so peer-reviewed papers in PubMed, the authoritative database of biomedical research, into roughly 50,000 unique topics. A small subset of these topics are so widely acclaimed as breakthroughs that they have been recognized with a major prize like a Nobel or a Lasker Award. We theorized that studying the development of these outliers over time, especially before they gained acclaim, was the key to identifying future instances of them. After defining topics, we chose 21 representative breakthroughs and asked what they looked like before they won prestigious prizes. To answer that question, we re-ran our topic-mapping algorithm repeatedly, winding back the clock one year each time, stringing together the years to follow the progress of each field as it grew and advanced. We found that in each case, the years leading up to a discovery followed a pattern: a burst of papers on a new, rapidly evolving topic, many of which quickly became influential. These characteristics—the percent of papers that are new, the percentage of papers that are brought in from other topics, and the influence of each individual paper—can all be measured separately for any given topic. Together, they act as a predictive signal that is detectable an average of five years before a transformative discovery is made, and up to thirty years before the discovery receives a major prize. Scanning the current research landscape for topics that display this signal allows us to predict what work will likely produce a future breakthrough. Each year we analyzed includes four or five signals, a number that appears to have remained constant across a twenty year time frame. In their classic work on the sociology of science, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar established that the desire to participate in a major discovery is an important motivator for scientists as they consider whether they should take up (or abandon) a research problem. Although further work is needed, the simplest explanation for our results is that this behavior is widespread enough to detect at scale. A foundational advance, or something like it, draws the attention of scientists and causes them to change the direction of their research. They vote with their feet, staking their own reputation and careers by publishing on and citing the new idea. That upswell of interest is the foundation of our breakthrough signal. What kind of research does our model identify as a breakthrough? After building a model based on the patterns in our 21 preselected breakthroughs, we tested it by identifying all early signals of discovery from 1994 through 1997. Of the 18 signals we found in that time period, 17 can be traced forward in time to a breakthrough. Examples include super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (see the image above), the directed evolution of proteins and enzymes (Chemistry Nobel, 2018), and sequencing the human genome (National Medal of Science, 2008). The discovery of the role of leptin signaling in obesity is a particularly interesting case study. Around 1950, scientists noticed the existence of a type of lab mouse that suffered from a unique inherited form of obesity. When given the freedom to choose their own diet, these mice ate more than normal and preferred food that was high in fat. Researchers had few clues as to why the animals overate; early experiments pointed to the existence of a soluble ob factor found circulating in the bloodstream that regulated appetite, but its identity was unknown. In 1994, Jeffrey Friedman and colleagues identified and sequenced the ob gene, noting that the protein it encoded appeared to fit the profile of a circulating factor. A year later, a trio of high-profile publications demonstrated that ob was a hormone that regulated body weight and fat deposition by regulating appetite. One of these was co-authored by Friedman, who christened it leptin from the ancient Greek word for thin. Using our model, the data from 1996 make it clear this advance would become a breakthrough. Scientists had flocked to study the biology of the new hormone, generating the flurry of new papers and citations required to produce a signal. One of these demonstrated that serum leptin concentrations reflected the amount of adipose tissue in the human body, providing clinical validation of the earlier mouse studies. Before the identification of leptin, scientists were unable to point to a specific molecule that controlled appetite and adiposity, so that it was impossible to rule out non-physiological causes of obesity; its characterization fundamentally changed our concept of weight gain. In 2010, Friedman and fellow pioneer Douglas Coleman were awarded a Lasker for the discovery. Our work also identifies breakthroughs in clinical practice and behavioral and social sciences, even though these areas are less likely to draw the attention of major prize committees. One example that falls into this category is the introduction of endovascular aneurysm repair, a minimally invasive surgical procedure for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, a leading cause of death among Americans over the age of 65. Relative to the previous standard of care, it reduces in-hospital mortality by almost four-fold. In 2017, Timothy Chuter received the American College of Surgeons’ prestigious Jacobsen Innovation award for his multiple refinements to the technique. Another under-recognized breakthrough identified by our model is the development of standardized survey instruments to assess the quality of life for HIV+ patients. The antiretroviral cocktails introduced in the mid-1990s reduced AIDS mortality, but treatment came with serious side effects. The new evaluations showed that patients whose disease progressed had worse physical functioning than Americans with other chronic diseases, while those who were asymptomatic maintained a health-related quality of life on par with the overall US population. This evidence made it possible for patients and activists to argue that even in the absence of a total cure, and in spite of the side effects, alleviation of symptoms was a worthwhile priority for clinicians. My colleagues and I have failed to identify any significant recognition for the physicians and health policy experts who pioneered this advance, although in 2016, researchers called for the World Health Organization to set targets for good health-related quality of life as part of its framework to end the AIDS pandemic. From forecasting to funding How should science funders use our predictions? Any serious discussion of what we should do with this new capability needs to begin with an understanding of its limitations. We can’t (and shouldn’t) invest all of our resources in the small number of topics predicted to produce breakthroughs. Innovative new fields are born from existing ones; they rarely arise de novo. If funders don’t maintain a diverse portfolio, the breakthroughs of tomorrow will have no antecedents. Think of this as eating the seed corn, or killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There are also multiple goals of funding beyond basic scientific discovery, including translating discoveries into clinical practice, developing new technologies, supporting economic development, and training new scientists. The investments needed to accomplish these goals are likely different from those required to support emerging breakthroughs. Finally, we must be aware that we may not capture every instance of a breakthrough. The concept is fuzzy, and not every significant discovery is recognized with a major award. Further, breakthroughs are rare, meaning that our dataset is, by necessity, small. This makes formal estimates of accuracy challenging. Although our overall success rate appears to be high, any one signal may turn out to be a false positive. We found one apparent example: the development of the third generation COX-2 inhibitors, Vioxx and Celebrex, which were much celebrated in the early 2000s as effective but non-addictive pain relievers, meets all the algorithmic criteria of a breakthrough. Five years after it received FDA approval, researchers demonstrated that Vioxx was associated with serious cardiovascular complications, and the manufacturer voluntarily pulled the drug from the market. Celebrex remains available, although like other NSAIDs, it carries an FDA warning for increased cardiovascular risk. Decision makers who were overly focused on the breakthrough potential of this research might have wasted substantial resources nurturing an area that ultimately proved to be a failure—but so would those who relied on expert opinion at the time. That said, the potential benefits of funding the next mRNA vaccine or cancer immunotherapy years earlier than we might have are large. When we can’t assume the outcome of an action, it’s worth conducting an experiment. Can targeted support for areas that are poised to produce a breakthrough increase the return on scientific investment without cannibalizing future advances? With the necessary administrative infrastructure in place, conducting this experiment would be straightforward. First, identify all the breakthrough signals between 2018 and 2023, select half at random, and commit to a decade of investment. For biomedicine, a six year window should yield about 30 topics with the potential to produce a breakthrough. Providing strong support to half of these might be accomplished for $300 million a year. That’s roughly half of the recent annual budget of the NIH Common Fund or around 20% of the fiscal year 2025 budget for ARPA-H. After five years, then again at ten, compare to see which group — the one that was actively managed, or the control — produced more breakthroughs, and on what timescale. Although we used biomedicine as an example, the same experiment could just as well be run for physics, materials science, or any other discipline. Any attempt to undertake such an experiment should keep three points top of mind. First, we can predict the topic of future breakthroughs, but the people and vision for how to move the work forward are still important. In practice, this means success requires active program managers with the expertise to develop the science and the authority to do so, including by recruiting investigators. Second, we would be wise to learn from the failures of past attempts to fund transformative research. High among these are funding modestly repackaged work, confusing the genuinely novel with the merely unfamiliar, and relying too much on incumbent investigators. All of these risks can be mitigated by thoroughly and intelligently integrating high quality data into portfolio management. Finally, we need to have patience. Even with strong funding support, producing a breakthrough takes time. If supporting breakthroughs is the best way to nurture the birth of new fields, we also need to accurately describe and properly manage the other two stages, so that we invest wisely throughout the productive lifetime of ideas and divest once they reach the point of diminishing returns. We would benefit from more study of all of these phases, especially the transition from one to another. More research could answer questions like: When does a breakthrough become an established field? How do the availability of funding, the size and characteristics of the available workforce, and the accumulation of evidence that disagrees with prevailing models affect a field’s decline? Exactly how do old ideas give birth to new ones, and can we speed up the process? The more we understand about the dynamics of scientific progress, the better we can maximize the odds that our curiosity leads to results. I’d call that finding a way to make our own luck.
David P. O'Brien
About five years ago, David P. O'Brien had a comfortable position at Marsh & McLennan Cos., where he held the top post at the financial giant's Louisville, Ky., office. Despite the lofty rank, Mr. O'Brien found himself longing to be at a smaller company that had to work a little harder to land business. That desire led him away from Kentucky five years ago and to Cleveland, where he serves as executive vice president at business insurance agency Oswald Cos. "I left Marsh before it was en vogue," he said, referring to layoffs and defections at Marsh over the course of this year that followed accusations of bid rigging at the big firm. Above all, Mr. O'Brien, 38, wanted to work at a company that relied on its inventiveness, rather than its name, for business. He said he has found that at Oswald. "It causes you to be more creative, to be more resourceful," Mr. O'Brien said. For instance, an Oswald client seeking to do business internationally might be directed to the network of offices abroad run by competitors such as Marsh and Aon Risk Services Inc. "We're going to use whatever access into the market that makes the most sense for our clients," he said. Of course, using such a strategy can be dangerous for Oswald if its client decides to further a business relationship with one of the firms Oswald recommended. "That's the obvious question and why it's nontraditional," he said. "I think if we're good, and if we're bringing value to the client, then there's no risk. I'm not threatened by it." Imaginative business solutions of that type made his career move to Oswald from Marsh worthwhile. "It's very much a challenge," he said. "It helps you keep your edge. I'm all for the competition." John Jacunski, currently vice president and corporate controller at York, Pa., paper company PH Gladfelter Co., met Mr. O'Brien four years ago when Mr. Jacunski was at WCI Steel Inc. in Warren. So impressed was he with Mr. O'Brien's work for WCI that Mr. Jacunski has retained the Oswald executive at PH Gladfelter. "He's a young guy for the position he has, but he's done a great job for us," Mr. Jacunski said. Among his roles at Oswald, Mr. O'Brien leads the firm's client retention efforts and also serves as director of its property and casualty group. "You don't have the same human resources," he said of the job jump to Oswald. "You don't have, obviously, the safety net a big company has." But sometimes, it can be difficult to ascertain individual contributions when working at a big company. "I wanted to be able to see the end results of my work and my efforts," Mr. O'Brien said.
Every Marshall player drafted by the Golden State Warriors
Let's take a look at every player who has been drafted by the Warriors out of Marshall.
MARCO Mobile Medicine Brings Care Closer to Home
For many families across Appalachia, a doctor’s appointment can mean taking time off work, arranging transportation, traveling winding mountain roads and spending hours on the road for a visit. It’s a challenge familiar to generations of West Virginians, particularly those living in rural communities where access to specialty care can be limited. Today, Marshall Health Network is helping change […]
Planet Labs CEO Will Marshall Says Business ‘Booming’ Thanks to AI at All-in
Planet Labs CEO Will Marshall joins Ashley Mastronardi on NYSE Live to discuss AI
Agencies train together to keep the community safer
Emergency services in Marshfield came together for a joint training so they're ready to respond when patients and communities need them most.
Brandon Marsh Takes Change to Heart
Sometimes success comes from taking the middle of the road. Or of the zone.
Maryland Science Center marks 50th anniversary; Harbor plaza groundbreaking
WBFF Fox45 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Baltimore and nearby towns and communities in Maryland, including Annapolis, Crofton, Glen Burnie, Linthicum, Pasadena, Severn, Cockeysville, Dundalk, Essex, Parkville, Owings Mills, Towson, White Marsh, Woodlawn, Hampstead, Sykesville, Taneytown, Westminster, Elkton, Perryville, Pt. Deposit, Rising Sun, Aberdeen, Abingdon, Bel Air, Edgewood, Fallston, Havre De Grace, Columbia, Elkridge, Ellicott City, Fulton, and Ocean City.
Legislative primaries could determine whether business issues take top priority
Voters will decide 23 legislative primaries on June 30. Many pit candidates focused on economic issues with those focused on social issues.
Celebrating four decades of emergency medical service in Santa Monica
UCLA Health’s Dr. Walid Ghurabi has been named grand marshal of Santa Monica’s Fourth of July parade.
When policy impedes healthcare, what are the solutions?
Yes, there’s money on the way from the federal government. But communities and healthcare systems are also taking things into their own hands.
Winston Marshall: UK politicians ‘won’t do anything’ to stop violence
WARNING: Graphic content — Grammy-winning musician Winston Marshall discusses a Sudanese migrant accused in the stabbing of a Belfast man in Northern Ireland on ‘The Will Cain Show.’
We can create the future of science right now
Paul Litvak is the founder and Executive Director of the Robyn Dawes Institute and a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley. He has a PhD in Behavioral Decision Research from Carnegie Mellon where he studied emotions and the sunk cost bias. Over 15 years in industry, he solved a wide range of challenging technical problems. At Meta he created models optimizing the ad review process. At Google he ran experiments to measure social influence. At Airbnb, he was a product manager leading machine learning teams optimizing search ranking and price suggestions. He also co-founded and led product at Rhythmic Health, a venture-backed biosensing startup, creating an accurate low cost system using a color changing strip and a smart phone to measure salivary lactate. The bottleneck At this point, it is uncontroversial to say that science needs to stop using the PDF article as the unit of knowledge and currency. The unbearable slowness of scientific publishing, the profit motive and margins: I’m not saying anything new. The PDF also sucks because it’s hard to extract structured information, which makes it hard to do evidence synthesis. As a result, we do much less evidence synthesis than is needed. And evidence synthesis ultimately undergirds most policy and medical decision-making. I can see second-by-second real-time odds for any sporting or newsworthy event, but a school board can’t see the best evidence on whether their 8th graders should be taught algebra. As a society, we don’t treat this as an important problem. Again, not controversial. Not only is the problem well understood, but the solution has already been laid out. What we need is AI-assisted living evidence synthesis - (1) an open knowledge graph of atomic claims, (2) claims linked to evidence, (3) assessment and synthesis of each piece of evidence, and (4) continuous updating with new data. What few realize (yet) is that the technical capacity to build this vision for a significant portion of science already exists. Not only that, scientists and startup teams are already building many of these components. I know this because I’ve been surveying the space and talking to many of the builders. There are some missing pieces: for example, evaluations of how well some of the components work. But at this point, most of what’s missing is a fully end-to-end working integration of all of these parts. In the rest of this essay, I’m going to lay out all the parts of a working living evidence layer for science and who is working on them, and propose concrete next steps for building this system. What’s now possible The diagram above outlines the components of a living evidence synthesis platform, including some of the teams working on each component1. Scientific PDFs are processed into claims with associated evidence. The evidence is subjected to a forensic audit, methodological evaluation and robustness and reproducibility checks. Finally it’s given a weight in a continuously updating synthesis. What follows is a description and status of each component and a few of the teams working on them. Document understanding The first thing you need to be able to do is turn an article into structured data. Mostly that means parsing PDFs. There are often multicolumn layouts that confuse non-specialized PDF to text processing libraries. For scientific papers, there is the added complexity of parsing formulas and tables and figures. This is a really hot area - there are startups offering APIs, and it seems like a new open source package gets posted to Github every few weeks. What follows isn’t exhaustive. A package called GROBID was the state of the art for a while, they didn’t update their package for nearly two years until very recently. In the meantime reducto.ai released an AI powered PDF extraction API, PaddleOCR became popular, IBM released a model called Docling, and both Mistral and Gemini created models and libraries. I also know of at least one other well-funded psychology research group working on a paper parser. By contrast, there are few open evals in this space, with no extensive evals for complex table comprehension in particular. Nonetheless, I’m confident this will be a solved problem soon, given the combination of LLM advances and developer interest. Hypothesis level extraction There has been increasing interest in comprehending the extracted text of papers and linking information to evidence for each hypothesis. A lot of work has already been done. Trialstreamer (Marshall et al. 2020) and RobotReviewer LIVE (Marshall et al. 2023) demonstrated automated extraction of trial population, intervention, and outcome at scale on clinical RCTs. PaperQA2 (Skarlinski et al. 2024) and Ai2 ScholarQA (2024) extended this to retrieval-augmented question answering with citation grounding. Elicit, Consensus, and SciSpace operationalized claim-level extraction for end users. OpenEval (Booeshaghi et al. 2026) is the most recent and most ambitious: 1.96 million atomic claims extracted from 16,087 eLife manuscripts using Claude Sonnet 4.5, grouped into ~299,000 results, with LLM evaluations showing 81% agreement with human peer review on a 2,487-paper subset. None of these solutions link claims to test-statistics, as you would need to evaluate randomized controlled trials. This is why I built the evidence.guide API - to extract hypotheses and associated test statistics from behavioral science papers. The best public eval of this kind of extraction I’m aware of comes from the recent SCORE project - they had humans code thousands of psychology papers to extract their claims by hand. It would be extremely helpful to the world if all scientific PDFs were available as structured open data. I’ve been working to make this happen, both directly at Berkeley and through coordination with large entities I can’t yet speak of; as hard as it is to do, I think it’s possible2. Forensic audit A lot of work has been done on forensic audit, but some gaps remain. Of course, for biology papers that rely on images for evidence, there are a variety of tools (notably Proofig and ImageTwin) to spot anomalies. These are still well short of what sleuths like Elizabeth Bik can do on her own, but these tools are constant companions among fraud analysts. There’s someone working on auditing Excel files for anomalies, and a number of teams are automating numerical checks like GRIM and SPRITE, including Scrutiny project, the INSPECT-SR team as well as statcheck. The regcheck team is building a way to use AI to compare preregistrations to analyses in papers, to ensure there aren’t significant deviations. Nonetheless, there are many other kinds of anomalies to screen for, both public and less publicly known. And there are no formal evals for anomaly detection that I’m aware of. Still, there’s a lot to draw from in this space and I’m pretty certain we will be able to scan papers for most kinds of obvious anomalies in the near future. Methodological review This area has been white hot, though I fear for many of the startups in this space, because this capability may become commoditized. There are at least six different AI peer review companies, including Refine.ink, Reviewer3, ReviewerZero.ai, Q.E.D. Science, Paper Wizard, and Isitcredible. Coarse (a pun on refine) was also recently created as an open source alternative. These systems provide qualitative feedback on the content of papers, spotting methodological weaknesses and mathematical errors. They seem to work pretty well, and many academics report bitterly that they exceed the average quality of typical peer reviewers. But there are few evals here either. What evals exist so far involve using LLM-as-judge (circularity problems abound) or comparing against human reviews of questionable quality. What you’d ideally want is an eval that measures capturing known errors in papers3. Reproducibility and robustness Another active area has been using AI agents to automate computational reproducibility4 and robustness5 checks in papers that report numerical results. For more recent papers where data and code are available, AI agents can see whether they can re-run the analyses and produce the numbers reported in the published paper. In addition to a handful of individual academics who have been experimenting using Claude Code for this, the Institute for Replication is a leading group working on building an end to end system. The evals related to this problem are the most mature, with CORE-Bench (Siegel, Kapoor, Narayanan 2024) and PaperBench (OpenAI 2025) available to benchmark agents on this task. There is also work on getting AI agents to test alternative ways of analyzing the data to ensure the results are robust to small analytic design choices. Synthesis This is the most underdeveloped area where significant investment is required. Although some automated evidence synthesis systems exist — for example, otto-sr is building an AI agent to write systematic reviews — none of these incorporate the full range of paper level signals to weight evidence appropriately. Nor is there anything like an eval or a gold standard for a good systematic review. Arguably Cochrane reviews are the closest we have to gold standard human systematic reviews, though I’ve heard academics in the know complain about their uneven quality. A key question for a synthesis platform is how to weight anomalies and methodological issues in assessing the quality of a piece of evidence. This is an unsolved problem and one I’m very keen to work on. Continuous updating There are many pieces of basic infrastructure available for monitoring for new research and initiating updates. OpenAlex is the current open citation graph. Retraction Watch integrated into Crossref in October 2023. Scite tracks how citations support, contrast, or mention prior claims. The Living Evidence Network demonstrated continuous-update workflows in clinical guidelines. Engineering this is a relatively straightforward task. When you look over this technical architecture and all the progress being made, it’s hard not to be optimistic that a living guide to scientific evidence will be built. The stakeholders are ready The social infrastructure for this is starting to coalesce — it’s not just a pie in the sky academic exercise to imagine this coming into existence. Institutions like the Center for Open Science, the Institute for Replication, the INSPECT-SR, the Living Evidence Network and more are all working on scaling work to improve research quality. Funders are also aligned. The Sloan Foundation has funded living evidence work through COS. Coefficient Giving supports the Institute for Replication and COS. The Astera Institute and the Institute for Progress have shown interest in this space. NIH has established an Office for Replication and Reproducibility. Although there are (very unfortunately) serious headwinds in science funding generally, there is an active group of funders interested in metascience. A brief word about what I’ve been doing at RDI. First, as a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley I’ve been actively figuring out how a non-profit and a public university can conduct and make public the results of large-scale academic article data mining. With some of the money I raised from donors, I commissioned a legal analysis of recent case law and publisher text data mining (TDM) agreements in order to understand whether a massive open data mining of academic articles is possible (with caveats, it is). I’ve also been working to bring together stakeholders in this space, and identify gaps. I’ve also been doing some software development in this space, with more to come. A pilot proposal The assumption undergirding all of this is that an AI, given all this information, would make the right judgment about a scientific claim with lots of conflicting evidence, weighing all the factors appropriately. That’s the hypothesis we need to test. Randomized control trial research is the best place to focus on first. RCTs are used to make many of the important decisions in society - from medical trials to public policy changes. And they use a relatively uniform set of inferential statistics with lots of known and available diagnostics. Behavioral science experiments, within the broader realm of RCTs, should be first used as a testbed whose results can be generalized. Because behavioral science is at the vanguard of open science practices, replications abound (there are thousands of them) to serve as ground truth training data. Key Hypothesis Therefore the pilot would test, in behavioral RCTs that have been replicated, whether the quality of evidence for a claim can be used to accurately predict whether that claim will replicate. Secondary Hypotheses Compared to claims that replicated, non-replicated claims demonstrate a greater share of forensic anomalies in their source literatures. Hypothesis level claim and statistic extraction is accurate enough to scale living evidence without onerous human review costs. Replication prediction is more accurate than prediction markets6 or journal prestige. If all the different quality signals we gather do accurately predict which studies will replicate, then we can use that model to score evidence to power the living evidence layer. Why this is informative regardless of outcome If the pilot succeeds, the architecture extends to medical RCTs (where Living Evidence already operates and integration is mostly about claim representation), then to slices of basic biology with stable replication structure. If it fails, the field learns which quality signals are load-bearing and which ones metascience has oversold. Either result is a contribution to knowing what the literature supports. Implications for funders Because this burgeoning ecosystem of builders already exists, a well-informed philanthropic or government funder could play a crucial catalyzing role in bringing this future about. They could play at least three roles: creating open structured datasets, publishing open benchmarks and incentivizing the solving of key technical challenges. First, open archives of papers that the government maintains, like PubMed, could be turned into structured data amenable to large scale metascience and claim aggregation. I know the US government already has an interest in doing this, though some key open questions remain unanswered. How do you determine the best models and systems for accurately extracting information from papers? How can you establish a robust way to allow researchers to flag errors and correct them? And finally, how do you create a legal regime in working with publishers to maximize the scope of available papers? For the latter, a university or a private philanthropy may be better positioned to make structured data publicly available under journal subscription terms or fair use. Philanthropists or government funders could also coordinate to create or commission benchmarks that evaluate whether important problems have been solved. For example, an open benchmark for claim extraction from a range of different scientific article types would be extremely helpful. Ensuring the underlying data are accurate is vital for creating these evaluations. I’ve discussed opportunistically using various human-created datasets for this purpose, but a consistent problem is that errors in human data make it difficult for them to serve as a gold standard. Finally, with structured data and benchmarks available, the government or private philanthropy could use them to incentivize groups to develop machine learning systems that meet these benchmarks. Prizes are one potentially valuable tool for this. For example, you could establish a prize for a system that accurately updates a living meta-analysis for a small set of claims. Prizes are particularly useful as signals of problem importance, and can help create vibrant ecosystems of public and private research—see, for example the role the government played in kickstarting the current work on nuclear fusion. Conclusion The drawbacks of the current scientific publishing system are known. Scientists agree, metascientists agree, philanthropists agree: the published PDF plus citation graph isn’t the right substrate for maintaining a representation of the evidence base in science. The pieces needed to build the alternative either already exist or are rapidly taking shape. The community is forming around exactly this problem, with concrete partnerships and shared infrastructure. A pilot should start on behavioral science RCTs because that’s the slice of empirical science most amenable to legibility, where replication ground truth is richest, and where the failure modes are best documented. What’s been missing is the galvanizing mission to assemble these pieces into something that works. That’s what I’m proposing to build. *** 1 I have a broader field map that I’ll release publicly soon. This is me, building in public! 2 If this is something that you are excited about, please reach out and talk to me. 3 More on this very soon too! 4 This tests whether, given the code and the data, you can get the same statistics as reported in the published paper. 5 This tests whether the results are the same as a paper’s given alternative analytical decisions in conducting the analysis (like outlier omission). Closely related is the idea of a “multiverse” where you come up with many different ways of answering the same underlying research question with the same data, and test whether the results hold in all those alternative methods. There’s been work on the latter as well. 6 Some of the replications, e.g. those from the SCORE project, had paired the experiments with forecasts from prediction markets. So we get to look at this for free.
open 42-bed medical rehabilitation hospital in South Point, Ohio
PAM Health, a leading national healthcare provider, in partnership with regional healthcare leader Marshall Health Network, announced plans to open a 42-bed physical medicine and rehabilitation hospital in South Point, Ohio. This location will be PAM Health’s third hospital in Ohio, joining PAM Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Miamisburg and PAM Health Specialty Hospital of Miamisburg. Located at 510 Commerce Lane in South Point, Ohio, the hospital is expected to open in October […]
Overcoming Aaron: Phillies 9, White Sox 6
Brandon Marsh and the Phillies’ lineup was able to overcome yet another bad start by Aaron Nola.
Marshall Milton ANC review: Making the rare case for premium on-ear headphones
Marshall's latest headphones are like its Major and Monitor models had a baby.
Marshall Health Network, Intermed Labs advance next-generation surgical visualization through spatial arthroscopy
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Marshall Health Network, in collaboration with Intermed Labs (IL), has announced the development of spatial arthroscopy, an innovative technology designed to transform how surgeons visualize and interact with minimally invasive procedures. The project, currently in development, was conceptualized by Chad D. Lavender, M.D., and represents a new frontier in surgical ergonomics and digital […]
TAHOE FUND AND BARTON HEALTH LAUNCH $25,000 MATCH FOR THE MARSH CAMPAIGN
250 donors can help unlock a $25,000 matching gift from Barton Health for the Upper Truckee Marsh The Tahoe Fund and Barton Health have launched an exciting new fundraising campaign to help restore the Upper Truckee Marsh South in South Lake Tahoe—the former site of the Motel 6 property. If 250 community members donate $50 […]
Sand Bass Festival underway in Madill
The National Sand Bass Festival in Madill, Oklahoma, is a highlight event featuring food vendors, carnival rides, and family-friendly activities all week. The festival takes place in Marshall County on the Madill square, which is closed to regular traffic to accommodate the festivities.
Match for the Marsh with Barton Health
We’re back with another awesome opportunity to transform the south end of the Upper Truckee Marsh, this time with help from our friends at Barton Health! Now that the California Tahoe Conservancy has demolished the former Motel 6 building, restaurant, and parking lot from the Upper Truckee Marsh in South Lake Tahoe, planning is underway […]
Marshall Health hosts Hope Blooms fundraiser to support Project Hope for Women & Children
Protesters deliver petitions to demand Sen. Roger Marshall meet with Kansans
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, hasn’t hosted a town hall open to the public since March of last year. On May 29, protesters delivered 3,800 signed petitions from Kansans across the state to Marshall’s Overland Park office.
Marshall’s Elli Barry Taking Part In NCAA Career In Sports Forum
Marshall Volleyball's Elli Barry is currently in Indianapolis taking part in the NCAA Career in Sports Forum, which runs from May 27-30 at the NCAA Headquart...
Artists drop out of DC Freedom 250 festival over reported political ties
WBFF Fox45 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Baltimore and nearby towns and communities in Maryland, including Annapolis, Crofton, Glen Burnie, Linthicum, Pasadena, Severn, Cockeysville, Dundalk, Essex, Parkville, Owings Mills, Towson, White Marsh, Woodlawn, Hampstead, Sykesville, Taneytown, Westminster, Elkton, Perryville, Pt. Deposit, Rising Sun, Aberdeen, Abingdon, Bel Air, Edgewood, Fallston, Havre De Grace, Columbia, Elkridge, Ellicott City, Fulton, and Ocean City.
Marshfield Clinic invests $90K in community health through United Way
Marshfield Clinic donated $90,000 to United Way of Wisconsin to boost community health initiatives within its service area.
UToledo Scientists Develop New Method to Estimate Hidden Species
The new model for collecting species data within ecosystems is published in the May issue of Ecological Informatics.
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Netflix Removing Drama Series Starring Jason Segel, Andre 3000
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Schwarber slugs, Luzardo grinds Phillies to Memorial Day win
A numbers-first look at Kyle Schwarber’s power at Petco Park, Jesús Luzardo’s six scoreless innings and Brandon Marsh’s late insurance.
Creative compassion: Scatter Joy Project Founder Zach Thompson brings mental health advocacy to his hometown
Class of 2008 Marshalltown High School (MHS) graduate Zach Thompson, who went on to play baseball at Marshalltown Community College (MCC) before relocating to his current home state of Ohio, started the Scatter Joy Project in Columbus as part of an effort to destigmatize conversations around mental health and highlight the intersection between mental health […]
How to Watch Marshals Season 1 Finale
Watch Marshals live with TV channel, start time and streaming info. Stream Season 1 Finale on Fubo — no cable required, free trial available.
Bond breakout? Big effects of bad data. Immigration and thermostatic politics & dad-chat is coming for dad-books.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Anna Airy, A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory, Hackney Marshes, London, 1918 Bond breakout - John Authers Across the developed markets, bond markets are staging a slow-motion car wreck. Looking at the drastic moves in the US, Japan, the UK and France, Barclays’ Ajay Rajadhyaksha commented: “Last week, long bonds broke. Not in one country. In all of them. Simultaneously. Four countries. Four different political systems. Four different central banks. But the same trade — “get me out of duration!”” Each country has its own contributing political problems, but the uniformity of the shift out of long-term bonds with high duration makes clear that something broader is afoot. For Rajadhyaksha, it is “simple and uncomfortable.” The developed world “has too much debt, too little fiscal discipline, and no political appetite for fixing either.” If there’s a trigger, it has been the Iran war and the resulting shock to oil supply. Source: Bloomberg G7 countries are now borrowing at rates that were enjoyed by EM in the early 2020s For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Trade between China and Russia has grown in recent years For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Big effects of bad data A decade ago nearly nine in ten Americans, when approached, agreed to fill out the Current Population Survey, which is administered to about 60,000 households each month and asks about, among other things, employment. Fewer than seven in ten do so now (see chart 1). For the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which tries to capture 3,700 households monthly, the response rate is down from 68% to 40%. … When the information becomes less reliable, investment decisions get more difficult to make. Some may be delayed, creating a potential drag on the economy. A new working paper by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, Erica Groshen, former head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) now at Cornell University, and Duncan Hobbs and Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, hazards an estimate. Preserving trust in “the integrity and quality of official statistics”, the authors claim, generates economic benefits of about $25 for every $1 spent on the BLS, the agency with an annual budget of $700m that is responsible for many of these data. To arrive at their conclusion the quartet analysed an ignoble episode in the BLS’s recent history. On August 1st 2025 Donald Trump sacked Erika McEntarfer, appointed as the agency’s commissioner by his predecessor, Joe Biden. The president alleged, without evidence, that the BLS’s steep downward revision to recent jobs numbers had been “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”. In fact, it was the wanton dismissal that looked bad in the eyes of many observers. In the following seven days there was a 50% leap, relative to the week before, in the average value of the index of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU), which tracks the number of articles mentioning such uncertainty that are published daily in American newspapers. This was a discernible jump even when compared to the chaos caused by Mr Trump’s trade war in April 2025 and his real one in Iran in the past two months (see chart 2). Based on Mr Bloom’s earlier study with other colleagues of the EPU’s impact on business investment, industrial production and employment, the authors estimate that the jump reduced American GDP by over $100bn (0.3%) and non-farm payrolls by 168,000 (0.1%). Source: The Economist Immigration and thermostatic politics (Sarah O’Connor in the FT) A strange thing happened a year and a half ago. No sooner had Americans elected Donald Trump as president on an explicitly anti-immigration platform than US public opinion began to swing much more favourably towards immigration. … to political scientists who study “thermostatic” politics, this development is no surprise at all. Public opinion often moves against the prevailing party, especially if they are perceived to have gone “too far” in one direction. The phenomenon was first explored in the 1990s with reference to fiscal policy, but in recent years it has been particularly evident in the realm of immigration policy. While these swings in opinion polls can make it seem as if people don’t know their own minds, they can be a useful democratic check on governments by sending bright flashing warning lights when policies stray too far from the public’s comfort zone. The problem comes when politicians misinterpret those signals. When people tell pollsters they want less immigration, or think it is bad for the country overall (or the converse), they are often expressing an opinion about how things appear to be going in that moment relative to their preferences, rather than a deep shift in their underlying views. According to Alexander Kustov, a political scientist, most Americans’ views are quite stable and moderate: they support immigration that is controlled and in the national interest, and oppose flows that are disorderly or under-enforced. In the US, he argues the Trump administration over-interpreted dissatisfaction with high immigration under Joe Biden, and implemented policies that went too far for many voters. “People don’t necessarily change their idea about their ideal immigration policy, but they can react to what the government is currently doing,” he told me. “A lot of people are not happy with what the Trump administration are doing — right now we’re not talking about border enforcement, we’re talking about people not just getting harassed, but killed.” But similarly, he added, pro-immigration advocates would be making a mistake to interpret the recent, more favourable swing towards immigration as a deep-seated ideological shift in attitudes. The recent history of UK immigration policy offers another cautionary tale. After the 2016 Brexit referendum, public concern about immigration fell. This was partly because net migration statistics declined, but also because people felt a sense of catharsis and control, says Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think-tank. By 2019, the public ranked immigration as only the ninth biggest issue of concern, according to Ipsos polling. But when the Conservative government liberalised visa routes for students and care workers between 2019 and 2022, that helped net migration to surge. And so, too, did public concern. Today’s Labour government has implemented another sharply restrictive turn in immigration policy. As Kustov and researcher Caitlyn Yates argue, thermostatic public opinion should be a useful check on politicians. Instead it seems to have helped to magnify the pendulum swing in the UK. The government over-interprets and overreacts to a change in public opinion, which reacts in turn, prompting a sudden swing the other way. Source: Financial Times HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $50. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Anna Airy, Shop for Machining 15-Inch Shells: Singer Manufacturing Company, Clydebank, Glasgow, 1918 Racing for a vaccine … we have been here before! The deadly Ebola outbreak in two African countries driven by a virus species with no vaccine has triggered an urgent search for a potential jab, in a test of troubled global efforts to avert threats posed by emerging diseases. A World Health Organization advisory group is due to would meet on Tuesday to recommend candidate jabs to prioritise for clinical trials, the global health body said. It will assess data including an analysis by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which was set up after failures in the international response to a previous Ebola crisis. The latest Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has infected hundreds of people and killed more than 80, health authorities say. Cepi’s reaction will be a crucial indicator of its progress towards its wider goal of producing vaccines for pandemic threats in just 100 days, despite steep cuts to international health funding. “If there was ever a time that we could show the world why Cepi is needed and show the world why the 100-day mission is needed, it’s now,” Nicole Lurie, the organisation’s executive director for preparedness and response, told the FT. “We’re happy to accept that responsibility, but obviously we need help from partners — particularly financial help in the long run.” DR Congo and Uganda would make the final decision on whether to press ahead with any vaccine candidates endorsed for clinical trials by the WHO experts, the global health body said. “Other ethical and community acceptability issues will be considered,” said the WHO, which declared the latest outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday. “This will be important to make sure that the trial, if it happens, will be adequately communicated to the population.” Lurie said Cepi had provided information from a survey of research teams and companies working on drugs that might be effective against the Bundibugyo virus behind the outbreak. The organisation hoped soon to announce partners in the quest for a jab, she added, although she declined to give a timescale for when one might be developed. Cepi’s Nicole Laurie said global health bodies were ‘getting some live-fire drills’ with hantavirus and the latest Ebola outbreak. The hunt for a vaccine should be helped by scientific advances including the use of artificial intelligence to find drugs active against viruses, Lurie said. Existing jabs against the Zaire Ebola virus responsible for many previous outbreaks might provide a basis for tackling the Bundibugyo species, she added. “We’ll see how far and how fast we can get,” Lurie said, adding that Cepi had done preliminary work recently on a possible jab for the rat-borne hantavirus responsible for a recent fatal outbreak on a cruise ship. “Both with hantavirus and now with Ebola, [we] are getting some live-fire drills.” Source: Michael Peel in the Financial Times Dad-chat is coming for dad-books. (By Pamela Paul and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in the WSJ) They were the go-to gifts for Father’s Day: a book about some little-known chapter of World War II, the sweeping narrative of a shipwreck, perhaps the latest presidential biography. These days, dad books are a dying breed. Nonfiction book sales have been in decline for the past four years, and are now the most challenged segment of the print book market. Publishers say certain types of books still fare well—including celebrity memoirs and religious titles. But in recent years, print sales in such categories as biography, current affairs and business and economics—what publishers refer to as “serious nonfiction” and which tend to resonate especially with men—have fallen considerably. Sales of nonfiction print titles were down nearly 8% through May 9 this year, and sales of books about politics and current affairs were down 19%, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. Publishing has long been subject to cyclical changes, with trends in format and genre taking over bookshelves in grand sweeps. (Remember the adult coloring-book craze? Or the stratospheric rise of romantasy?) But many in publishing believe the decline in serious nonfiction is more existential. “The trend couldn’t be clearer,” said Jonathan Karp, the former chief executive of Simon & Schuster and publisher of the new Simon Six imprint. “This is a sea change and people should wake up and realize we’re living in a new world.” One culprit for the shift: a new media diet for fans of more serious nonfiction. … Sixty-two percent of men and 54% of women consumed a podcast in the prior month, according to a recent survey by Edison Research at SSRS, up from 46% and 39%, respectively, in 2023. “When we have internal meetings to talk about this problem, it always comes around to podcasts,” said Jonathan Burnham, president and publisher of the Harper Group at HarperCollins Publishers. “The man who wants to read American history is now tuning into one of the many good podcasts about history that lends the quiet attention to a serious subject he’s looking for. It makes the idea of sitting down with a 700-page Ron Chernow book less appealing. You’ve scratched that itch.” Source: Wall Street Journal Remarkable report by Novara from the nationalist rally in London in mid May. Anna Airy, Leopard Moth and Plums, 1915 If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
Politics of potholes: why Bristol can’t fix its broken roads overnight
Marsh Street has been cited as Bristol’s worst for potholes. But it’s just one of many crumbling roads in Britain as councils face repairs backlogs and lack of funds
A legacy built to last: Vanderbilt Health Patient Transport creates Charles "Pete" Marshall Legacy Award to recognize the best of its own
The award is named for Charles "Pete" Marshall, a long-tenured patient transporter who started a summer job at Medical Center North in 1981 after graduating from high school.
Marshall Health Network to offer free sports physicals on June 4
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Marshall Health Network will offer free sports physicals by appointment to middle and high school students Thursday, June 4, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Marshall Sports Medicine Institute (MSMI), located at 2211 Third Avenue, Huntington. All students must bring their West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission or Ohio High School Athletic Association physical form completed and signed by a parent or legal guardian. To schedule an appointment, visit https://tinyurl.com/MSMIphysicals2026. Sports physicals are also available throughout the year at […]
Waste Watch: How community colleges spent taxpayer-funded mental health recovery dollars
WLOS News 13 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Asheville, NC and nearby towns and communities in Western North Carolina and the Upstate of South Carolina, including the counties of Buncombe, Henderson, Rutherford, Haywood, Polk, Transylvania, McDowell, Mitchell, Madison, Yancey, Jackson, Swain, Macon, Graham, Spartanburg, Greenville, Anderson, Union, Pickens, Oconee, Laurens, Greenwood, Abbeville and also Biltmore Forest, Woodfin, Leicester, Black Mountain, Montreat, Arden, Weaverville, Hendersonville, Etowah, Flat Rock, Mills River, Waynesville, Maggie Valley, Canton, Clyde, Franklin, Cullowhee, Sylva, Cherokee, Marion, Old Fort, Forest City, Lake Lure, Bat Cave, Spindale, Spruce Pine, Bakersville, Burnsville, Tryon, Columbus, Marshall, Mars Hill, Brevard, Bryson City, Cashiers, Greer, Landrum, Clemson, Gaffney, and Easley.
Sen Blackburn says sports betting hearing likely first of ‘several’ as Congress weighs federal action
Sen. Blackburn says Congress must determine where federal regulation is needed as sports betting and prediction markets rapidly expand in the U.S.
How Cassidy’s loss could turn into an even bigger win for RFK Jr.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Make America Healthy Again devotee, is angling to replace the defeated Louisiana senator atop the Health Committee.
How Cassidy’s loss could turn into an even bigger win for RFK Jr.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Make America Healthy Again devotee, is angling to replace the defeated Louisiana senator atop the Health Committee.
‘There’s science happening all around us’
MARSHALL — As another school year approaching the end, more than 900 area students and participants went on a field trip and made memories at the 2026 Science and Nature Conference on Tuesday at Southwest Minnesota State University, hosted by the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative (SWWC). This was the SWWC’s 32nd annual Science and […]
Kara Wildman receives 2026 Woman in Business Award
Kara Wildman, owner of Happy Tails in Marshalltown, was presented the 2026 Woman in Business Award during the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce Women in Business Luncheon held at Iowa Valley Business & Community Solutions Dejardin Hall on Thursday, May 14. Presenting Kara with the award was Stella and Jonas Wildman, Kara’s children. It was […]
Lawmakers & Trump Admin. Officials Discuss The Advancement of Health Care
Lawmakers and top Trump Administration officials, including Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, participate in discussions on U.S. advancement in health care.