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Trump’s craving for the spotlight risks Iran deal hopes

Donald Trump has spent days negotiating peace in Iran — with himself.

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Apr 21 • 12:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Business owners and residents say iconic Sunset Strip is losing its image to developers
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Apr 20 • 8:08 PM EDT • Business • cbsnews.com
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A deal to end the Iran war seemed close. Then Trump started posting on social media

As the weekend approached, the US and Iran appeared to be closing in on a deal to end the seven-week war.

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Apr 20 • 6:54 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
UK PM Starmer admits Mandelson mistake, rejects resignation calls
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Apr 20 • 3:44 PM EDT • Politics • aljazeera.com
Detroit business prepare for uptick in customers with Pistons in NBA playoff
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Apr 20 • 7:44 AM EDT • Business • cbsnews.com
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Cubs hand Mets their 11th straight loss by rallying for a 2-1 win in 10 innings

It’s the longest losing streak for the Mets since 2004.

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Apr 20 • 5:30 AM EDT • Sports • ny1.com
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Zeiterion to spotlight New Bedford hip-hop on May 23. What to know.

New B @ The Z on May 23 will spotlight New Bedford hip-hop through performances, competitions, workshops and community collaboration.

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Apr 20 • 4:03 AM EDT • Entertainment • southcoasttoday.com
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New threats and tensions rattle Iran ceasefire and test peace push

The Iran ceasefire and expected peace talks this week are hanging by a thread as tensions boil over the strategic waterway that epitomizes Tehran’s new leverage and a conflict that critics warn has escaped President Donald Trump’s control.

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Apr 20 • 12:01 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Starting Monday, businesses can claim refunds for Trump’s unconstitutional tariffs. But it will take 60-90 days to get paid

Importers and their brokers will be able to begin claiming refunds through an online portal beginning at 8 a.m., according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

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Apr 19 • 7:58 PM EDT • Business • fortune.com
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Businesses can claim refunds for Trump tariffs ruled unconstitutional starting Monday

A refund system for businesses that paid tariffs which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump imposed without the constitutional authority to do so is scheduled to launch Monday. Importers and their brokers will be able to begin claiming refunds through an online portal beginning at 8 a.m., according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency administering the system. It's the first step in a complicated process that also might eventually lead to refunds for consumers who were billed for some or all of the tariffs on products shipped to them from outside the United States.

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Apr 19 • 3:00 PM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
Editorial: Let’s get some ‘Pothole Politics’ here from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York

Sewer socialism might not be as bad as it sounds.

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Apr 19 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • chicagotribune.com
Kennard scores 27, LeBron leads Lakers to surprising 107-98 win over Rockets

Game 2 is Tuesday night in Los Angeles

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Apr 18 • 11:24 PM EDT • Sports • spectrumnews1.com
Boldy has 2 goals and an assist as Wild overwhelm Stars 6-1 to open series

Game 2 is Monday night in Dallas.

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Apr 18 • 8:45 PM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com
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Obama meets Mamdani in New York City ahead of a preschool reading event
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Apr 18 • 5:25 PM EDT • Politics • cbsnews.com
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Florida Politics Now

Florida Politics Now - April 18, 2026

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Apr 18 • 4:43 PM EDT • Politics • wctv.tv
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Trump signs order fast tracking review of psychedelics for mental health disorders

President endorses psilocybin and ibogaine: "Can I have some, please?"

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Apr 18 • 2:56 PM EDT • Health • npr.org
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Two arrested after 29 illegal gambling machines seized at Tallahassee business

Two people are behind bars, and a gambling house is shut down after law enforcement seized over two dozen illegal gambling machines from a Tallahassee business.

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Apr 18 • 11:38 AM EDT • Business • wtoc.com
Two arrested after 29 illegal gambling machines seized at Tallahassee business

Two people are behind bars, and a gambling house is shut down after law enforcement seized over two dozen illegal gambling machines from a Tallahassee business.

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Apr 18 • 11:38 AM EDT • Business • wctv.tv
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Two arrested after 29 illegal gambling machines seized at Tallahassee business

Two people are behind bars, and a gambling house is shut down after law enforcement seized over two dozen illegal gambling machines from a Tallahassee business.

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Apr 18 • 11:38 AM EDT • Business • wdbj7.com
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Two arrested after 29 illegal gambling machines seized at Tallahassee business

Two people are behind bars, and a gambling house is shut down after law enforcement seized over two dozen illegal gambling machines from a Tallahassee business.

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Apr 18 • 11:38 AM EDT • Business • 1011now.com
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President Trump orders faster review of psychedelic drugs for mental health treatment
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Apr 18 • 11:35 AM EDT • Health • king5.com
Stars, Wild finally set for Game 1 in long-expected 1st-round NHL playoff series

Both teams have a pair of 40-goal scorers in the same season for the first time.

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Apr 18 • 11:24 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com
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Brentford held by Fulham for fifth consecutive draw

Brentford miss the chance to go sixth in the Premier League with a goalless draw against visitors Fulham - their fifth consecutive stalemate in the top flight.

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Apr 18 • 9:46 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Schematik Is ‘Cursor for Hardware.’ Anthropic Wants In

Schematik is a program that aims to help people vibe code for physical devices. Hopefully, it won’t blow anything up.

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Apr 18 • 6:30 AM EDT • Technology • wired.com
High gas prices become another midterm warning sign for Republicans

In a midterm election that will likely be decided by how voters feel about the economy, Republicans are grappling with how to discuss the war in Iran and its impact on fuel costs.

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Apr 18 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Trump ‘in discussions’ with IRS to cut deal in tax record lawsuit

President Donald Trump is in talks with the Internal Revenue Service to strike a deal over the release of his tax records. The news was revealed in a legal filing, where his legal team said they were in “discussions” with the IRS to “avoid protracted litigation.” Trump is seeking $10 billion in damages, which would […]

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Apr 17 • 4:26 PM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com
Report: Jacoby Brissett not at Cardinals workouts, wants new contract

The Cardinals haven't named Jacoby Brissett their starting quarterback, but he reportedly would like a contractual commitment from the team that reflects the chance that he'll be under center in Week 1.

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Apr 17 • 1:52 PM EDT • Sports • nbcsports.com
Green Bay business turns plastic waste into reusable resource

Less than a week before Earth Day, Cherry Optical Lab is showcasing their efforts to put their unused plastic to positive use.

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Apr 16 • 11:16 PM EDT • Business • wbay.com
Business owner says her furniture company thrives due to a community of collaborators

‘Made in America’ finalists Tina Nicole and Khai Mai describe how they created Nathan Anthony Furniture on ‘The Bottom Line.’

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Apr 16 • 7:04 PM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com
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RFK Jr. defends proposed 12% health budget cut, measles response in House testimony
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Apr 16 • 6:58 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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Paramount's David Ellison makes big promises to theater owners at CinemaCon

He commits to a 45-day theatrical window

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Apr 16 • 3:20 PM EDT • Entertainment • spectrumlocalnews.com
UFC White House fight week schedule, event start time revealed

The UFC has a number of events planned ahead of the White House card

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Apr 16 • 3:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax killed his wife and himself, police say

Police say the couple was going through a divorce and that the shootings may have been sparked by court paperwork he received

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Apr 16 • 11:32 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
Where to watch Toronto Blue Jays vs. Milwaukee Brewers: Live stream, TV channel, odds for Thursday, April 16

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays close out their three-game series with the Brewers.

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Apr 16 • 11:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
‘He’s got a lot of stamina:’ What to watch as the RFK Jr. hearing blitz kicks off

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will make the case for the Trump budget. Democrats will test his political acumen.

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Apr 16 • 4:45 AM EDT • Health • politico.com
Ex-Trump election lawyer John Eastman disbarred in California

More than five years after he pushed a plan to help Donald Trump cling to power after losing the 2020 election, the president’s former election lawyer John Eastman has lost his license to practice law in the state of California.

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Apr 15 • 11:26 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Vance tells Pope Leo to ‘be careful’, Homan says ‘leave politics alone’

Senior Trump administration officials escalated criticism of the Vatican on Tuesday, with Vice President Vance warning Pope Leo XIV to “be careful” when speaking about theology and White House Bord…

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Apr 15 • 10:57 PM EDT • Politics • thehill.com
SBA administrator visits Jimmy's Famous Seafood on Tax Day

Kelly Loeffler toured Jimmy's Famous Seafood with co-owner Tony Minadakis during a Tax Day event on Wednesday.

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Apr 15 • 10:15 PM EDT • Business • wbaltv.com
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Doormen authorize potential strike, demand better pay and benefits

About 34,000 union members would be affected by the strike.

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Apr 15 • 8:13 PM EDT • Politics • ny1.com
Two Floridians in Congress face mounting pressure to resign

Members of Congress are weighing in on Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick and Rep. Cory Mills.

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Apr 15 • 6:35 PM EDT • Politics • baynews9.com
Trial date set for suspects in Kansas City sports reporter’s death

A trial date has been set for the three suspects in connection to a Kansas City sports reporter's death.

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Apr 15 • 11:51 AM EDT • Sports • kctv5.com
America 250: Public health breakthroughs that shaped the nation: water fluoridation

In the mid-20th century, a public health intervention began flowing through American communities — community water fluoridation.

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Apr 15 • 10:35 AM EDT • Health • wtop.com
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Language Gaps in Health Care Can Be Deadly—CU Denver Program Trains Professionals to Close Them

Miscommunication in health care can have serious consequences. At the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), a medical Spanish certificate program is

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Apr 15 • 9:54 AM EDT • Health • news.ucdenver.edu
Jury selection starts for Harvey Weinstein's latest retrial in N.Y. rape case

It's the third time that jurors will weigh whether he raped a woman.

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Apr 15 • 9:35 AM EDT • Entertainment • spectrumlocalnews.com
The World Cup isn’t where Matt Crocker’s sudden exit will impact U.S. Soccer most

The federation sporting director's sudden defection to Saudi Arabia comes with bad optics on the cusp of a home World Cup

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Apr 15 • 5:00 AM EDT • Sports • nytimes.com
Why are many Americans turning to AI for health advice

A Gallup poll found that roughly one-quarter of U.S. adults had used an AI tool for health information or advice in the past 30 days.

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Apr 15 • 2:42 AM EDT • Health • nbclosangeles.com
Polls show why many Americans are turning to AI for health advice

Many Americans are turning to artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT for health advice. A Gallup poll out Wednesday found that about 1 in 4 U.S. adults had used AI for health information in the past month.

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Apr 15 • 12:14 AM EDT • Health • apnews.com
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Why Many Americans Are Turning to AI for Health Advice, According to Recent Polls

NEW YORK (AP) — When Tiffany Davis has a question about a symptom from the weight-loss injections she’s taking, she doesn’t call her doctor. She pulls out her phone and consults ChatGPT. “I’ll just basically let ChatGPT know my status, how I’m feeling,” said the 42-year-old in Mesquite, Texas. “I ...

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Apr 15 • 12:14 AM EDT • Health • usnews.com
Developers to meet with business owners about replacing historic cottages with 324-unit complex

Tennessee-based Bristol Development Group proposes demolition of colorful Fruitville Road village.

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Apr 14 • 5:58 PM EDT • Business • mysuncoast.com
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Democrats float 25th Amendment commission for Trump

Democrats in Congress introduce a bill to invoke the 25th Amendment against President Donald Trump, citing national security concerns.

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Apr 14 • 3:54 PM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com
Republicans’ big 2026 problem: An unhinged Trump who doesn’t seem to care about them

It’s almost as if President Donald Trump doesn’t care that what he’s doing could torpedo the GOP’s hopes in less than seven months — because Congress doesn’t matter much to his view of power.

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Apr 14 • 3:30 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
‘A great fight town.’ UFC returns to Philly as latest major sports event planned for 2026

UFC 330 will be the MMA promotion’s first event in the city since 2019, and the first “numbered” event here since 2011.

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Apr 14 • 3:08 PM EDT • Sports • billypenn.com
Google’s Spotlight-like desktop search bar for Windows is available for everyone

Another way to google.

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Apr 14 • 1:12 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Iowa House passes bill expanding subacute mental health care

A bill aiming to remove barriers for mental health access in Iowa is heading to the governor's desk.

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Apr 14 • 8:37 AM EDT • Health • kcci.com
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Barcelona squad named for Atlético 2nd leg

Hansi Flick has called up 24 players for Tuesday’s clash

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Apr 14 • 3:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas says he will retire after admitting to affair with staffer

Gonzales had already said he would not seek reelection after admitting to an affair with a staff member who later died by suicide.

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Apr 13 • 7:30 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
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Bengals player smoothly answers Dexter Lawrence trade question

A Bengals player got asked about a Dexter Lawrence trade and handled it in a way fans will like.

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Apr 13 • 7:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Vance had two high-profile opportunities to prove himself. Both fell flat

In the latter half of 2025, Vice President JD Vance’s future as the next Republican presidential nominee was looking fairly promising. It’s been a series of unfortunate events since then.

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Apr 13 • 6:56 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Project 2025 author Paul Dans drops primary challenge to Lindsey Graham in South Carolina

Trump reacted to Dans' announcement with a social media post suggesting that Tucker Carlson's endorsement of Dans had been the "KISS OF DEATH” for his campaign.

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Apr 13 • 3:51 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
Swimming becomes the first major Olympic sport to lift restrictions on Russian athletes

The governing body for international swimming and aquatic sports will allow athletes from Russia to compete without restrictions and with their national flag and anthem.

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Apr 13 • 3:41 PM EDT • Sports • pbs.org
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Decades-old Idaho campaign finance laws remain on the books. Why reforms failed

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And I can tell you, nothing’s broke with people raising money,” said Nampa Republican Rep. Brent Crane.

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Apr 13 • 3:19 PM EDT • Politics • idahostatesman.com
Trump, 79, Raises Fresh Health Concerns After Unbelievable Mix-Up

The president’s feeble reasoning sparked questions about his cognitive function.

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Apr 13 • 2:45 PM EDT • Health • thedailybeast.com
JD Vance Seems to Ruin Everything He Touches

Does the vice president really think he has a shot in 2028, despite his consistent failures?

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Apr 13 • 1:54 PM EDT • Politics • esquire.com
Trump’s strait blockade risks another serious blow to the global economy

The failure of US-Iran peace talks leaves President Donald Trump with a set of unattractive options that are unlikely to hand him a decisive or swift victory.

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Apr 13 • 12:01 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Zohran Mamdani celebrates ‘pothole politics’ in a raucous rally marking 100 days as NYC mayor

Having just marked his first 100 days as New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani told a roaring crowd of supporters, city workers and political allies his administration has already delivered evidence a democratic socialist can, in fact, govern.

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Apr 12 • 10:26 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Masters 2026: Only one question remains for Rory McIlroy — how high will he climb among golf's all-time greats?

McIlroy may never have the numbers to catch Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods, but he certainly has a pathway to No. 3 all-time.

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Apr 12 • 7:27 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Trump: Iran will give us ‘Everything we want’
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Apr 12 • 1:45 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Appleton area high school sports results for Saturday, April 11

High school baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, track and field, and golf teams were in action.

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Apr 12 • 12:42 PM EDT • Sports • postcrescent.com
As Swalwell’s campaign unravels, his rivals in California governor’s race scramble for an opening

The sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell are damaging his hopes of winning the governor’s race, with former allies revoking their endorsements and a growing list of prominent Democrats telling him to withdraw.

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Apr 12 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Ira Winderman: Wins up, seed similar, season sideways for Heat

MIAMI — A better record. A similar play-in seed. But at least less drama, so there’s that. A year ago, when assessing a 37-45 season that delivered the Heat to the No. 10 and final play-in seed, the thought was of a net gain in escaping a half season of Jimmy Butler drama. Now, when assessing a record assured of finishing on the plus side of .500, the question is if the gain is tangible, ...

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Apr 12 • 5:30 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
No peace deal after US-Iran talks in Pakistan

Each side blamed the other for the failure of the 21-hour-long negotiations.

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Apr 12 • 2:10 AM EDT • Politics • tvpworld.com
New clinic brings at-home health care to La Plata, San Juan counties

HERMOSA – The practice of a doctor traveling to a patient’s home to deliver care – as opposed to the patient traveling to a medical campus or visiting a doctor in an office – is largely bygone. Accord...

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Apr 12 • 1:00 AM EDT • Health • durangoherald.com
Finley: Trump's college sports order is an overreach

President's executive order on transfer portal, NIL has him meddling where he doesn't belong.

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Apr 11 • 8:00 PM EDT • Sports • detroitnews.com
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How Shadow AI Culture Is Destroying Your Business

Shadow AI isn't a compliance problem. It's a cultural exodus. How institutional control over AI, work, and creativity is driving your best people underground.

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Apr 11 • 5:43 PM EDT • Business • forbes.com
Rockstar Games has confirmed it was hit by third-party data breach

The ShinyHunters hacking group is giving Rockstar Games until April 14 to respond to its threats.

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Apr 11 • 1:51 PM EDT • Technology • engadget.com
Iraq parliament elects Kurdish politician Nizar Amedi as president

New president pledges 'Iraq First' after securing 227 votes, ending five months of political deadlock.

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Apr 11 • 1:24 PM EDT • Politics • aljazeera.com
“AI polls” are fake polls

A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.

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Apr 11 • 11:38 AM EDT • Technology • natesilver.net
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How Amazing Stories Served as the Blueprint for American Science Fiction

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Celebrate Amazing Stories and Science Fiction’s 100th Birthday

Doors Open 7:15 p.m. Celebrate Amazing Stories and Science Fiction’s 100th Birthday with us! In April 1926, Hugo Gernsback published Amazing Stories magazine for the first time, and while the name of the genre took a few more years to become a household term, many credit this moment with the birth of Science fiction fandom as we know it today! Join us for a two-panels featuring a discussion on the impact of Amazing Stories and Science Fiction as a genre! Featuring published authors, scholars, and podcasters with deep knowledge of the history and great works of the last 100 years. The second panel will be a how-to guide for writing your own Science fiction stories or novels, including teachers, authors, and scholars of the genre. Verbatim Books on Facebook / Instagram

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Apr 9 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • kpbs.org
How NASA is monitoring and studying the health of Artemis II astronauts
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