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AP Labs Cut as District Aims to Spread Science Time More Evenly
SOMSD pulled the extended lab period from AP STEM courses to spread science time more evenly. The board debate over equity, data and pacing.
'Sony's Hearing a Lot of the Feedback from Customers': NIS America Boss Weighs in on PS5 Disc Debate
"We'll have to see what happens"
AG hopefuls Savit, Lloyd spar over Line 5, AI regulation in first debate
Republican Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd and Democratic Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit are running to succeed Attorney General Dana Nessel
‘All INdiana Politics’: Property tax reform and childcare costs dominate debate in key State Senate race
INDIANAPOLIS — The race for Indiana’s 29th State Senate district has emerged as a focal point for the upcoming elections as candidates compete for an open seat in a key swing district. The vacancy follows State Senator J.D. Ford’s decision to challenge U.S. Representative Victoria Spartz for her seat in Congress. The 29th District stretches […]
The data center debate
We’ve been warned in the past two weeks that artificial intelligence (AI) may kill us all in the next five to 10 years. Industry leaders have suggested there are dangerous...
The data center debate
We’ve been warned in the past two weeks that artificial intelligence (AI) may kill us all in the next five to 10 years. Industry leaders have suggested there are dangerous...
As former athletes, some Senators have extra say on the college sports reform bill
As Senate considers a major college sports reform bill lobbied for by the NCAA and other powerful stakeholders, some lawmakers — themselves former college athletes — have a major say in the debate.
Political Pulse: Overton grilled on Capitol Hill & debate over debates in governor’s race
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – A New Mexico doctor nominated by President Trump to lead the FDA faced questions on Capitol Hill during her confirmation hearing this week. Senators grilled Heidi Overton o…
Kean returned to Congress after an unexplained absence. Now it's time for his first and only debate
It's the first and only campaign debate in a New Jersey congressional race that's drawn much interest.
Kean returned to Congress after an unexplained absence. Now it's time for his first and only debate
It's the first and only campaign debate in a New Jersey congressional race that's drawn much interest.
Is Tinned Fish Healthy? A Dietitian Settles the Debate
Plus, whether it stacks up nutritionally against fresh fish.
Saturday Night Open Thread: Bungling through the season
Come and join this merry band of Steelers’ faithful for some lively debate about our Steelers, good food, music, and the merits of the odd cold beverage.
Presentation on proposed development by Emplify Health in Viroqua Business Park sparks debate about the future of local healthcare
Sept. 26, 2026 by TIM HUNDT VIROQUA, Wis. — A proposed healthcare expansion in Viroqua has moved to a key municipal committee, as local consumers continue to wonder what the shifting relationship between Vernon Health and Emplify Health will mean for their access to medical care. The Viroqua Business Park Commission met Wednesday, September 23, […]
Byron Donalds says he would have debated David Jolly at Sunshine Economy Summit
'He just wants to hide from the voters.'
Huang says 1 number in the AI debate isn't science-based at all
Nvidia's CEO took aim at a figure that has shaped careers and portfolios, and the man behind it has his own doubts.
Colorado Politics Calendar Sept. 28-Oct. 4
CoPo’s weekly political calendar will help you find political and public-policy events throughout Colorado. It includes candidate and issue campaign events, public policy meetings, court hearings, state and local party conventions, assemblies, debates, rallies, parades, speaking engagements, traveling dignitary appearances, water meetings, book signings, county commission hearings, city council meetings and more. As a subscriber, […]
Debate over James Rodríguez's starting spot intensifies
The recent clásico between Atlético Nacional and Millonarios sparked debate among fans about the role James Rodríguez should take on in the team.Gradual integration and technical contributionThe mi...
How To Catch a Predator Turned Crime Stings Into Prime-Time Entertainment - FINCHANNELTo Catch a Predator: How Chris Hansen’s NBC Show Changed Reality TV
To Catch a Predator became a ratings hit by confronting suspected child-sex offenders on camera. Its methods, police cooperation and the death of Bill Conradt sparked a lasting debate over journalism and entertainment.
Political debates were once considered essential. Has that changed?
For most of the television era, the political debate had a pretty straightforward purpose: Put candidates next to each other, take away the script, and let voters watch. But with no top-of-ticket debates scheduled to happen in Florida this year, where does the debate stand?
Winning Gen Z: Radical media, political access, and the youth vote
Xaviaer DuRousseau analyzes Hasan Piker's influence on young voters and the growing debate over radical media in youth politics.
In tight R.I. lieutenant governor’s race, Matos, Loughlin to face off in first debate
Republican John Loughlin is seen as having the best chance to win a statewide election for his party since 2006. But incumbent Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos has an advantage, she doesn’t approach politics as a my-way-or-the-highway proposition.
LeBron James mocked online over viral open-run footage
headlinephotos/Depositphotos LeBron James sparks new 76ers viral debate LeBron James, a forward for the Philadelphia 76ers, became the focus of a viral video on September 22, 2026, showing him missing jumpers during an open run at Crespi Carmelite High School in Los Angeles. The footage came from a longer session also featuring NBA players DeMar…
Are girls more social from birth?
Madeleine Finlay sits down with her co-host and Guardian science editor, Ian Sample, to discuss three science stories from the week, including a study that offers a clue in the age-old debate about whether sex differences are present from birth or a product of socialisation. Also on the agenda is the super El Niño, which is predicted to lead to 450,000 deaths in the next six months, and an answer to why the UK’s meningitis outbreak earlier this year was so big.
Why I invite the far left and right to my college debates
My peers deserved to engage with their views. What else is college for?
In Texas, Talarico pitches a Fox News debate as Paxton stays silent
The state’s Democratic and Republican Senate candidates have not squared off yet.
Lawmakers debate solutions to violence against health care workers
The branches differ on the extent of penalties to impose on those who assault a health care worker.
Politics Friday: How would having a woman as governor changes Capitol issue set?
Friday at noon, Minnesota is on the verge of joining the solid majority of states to have a woman as governor. We discuss what impact that could have on issue debates. Also, a look at the polling.
Is metascience being co-opted?
In July, the White House released a report that argued academia is deeply dysfunctional and in need of radical reform.Science: A New Golden Age sets out a litany of problems many academics will recognise: interminable waits for grants; short-term funding rather than support for longer, more ambitious projects; ballooning administrative requirements; pressure to publish, and many more. “The scientific machine is getting bogged down,” it says. At least on the face of it, Science: A New Golden Age is a triumph for the metascience movement, a loose-knit, global group of academics, philanthropists and think tankers that want far more testing and experimentation in how we fund public research and innovation. The report tells US research funders to set up internal metascience units to do just this. But it has also set alarm bells ringing that metascience is being conveniently deployed to help justify the defunding of US universities, which US vice president JD Vance has openly labelled “the enemy.” “Just because you have an issue with your plumbing in your house doesn't mean you light the entire house on fire and burn it to the ground,” said Colette Delawalla, chief executive of Stand Up for Science, a group campaigning against what it says are attacks on scientists by the Trump administration. No one is arguing that academia doesn’t need reform, but there’s debate over how far and how fast the system should be shaken up. Does public R&D need slow and steady evidence-based adjustment, or radical new experiments?One of the key arguments in Science: A New Golden Age is that there’s not enough funding for what it calls “mid-level” science: engineering-heavy projects that require tens of millions of dollars, involve ten to a hundred people, and last around five years. Such a project might develop a brain-computer interface for people with Alzheimer's disease, for example. As such, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has already announced $1.5 billion to set up so-called X-Labs, effectively new research organisations to pursue breakthroughs in areas such as quantum sensing and new scientific instruments. Funding divertedBut there’s a catch: this money has squeezed NSF budgets for more traditional, fundamental research grants, Science reported in June, likely meaning less cash for university-based scientists. Science: A New Golden Age also makes various swipes at universities, accusing them of extracting overheads from scientists to fund administrative bloat. “We have become dependent on a narrow set of legacy institutions,” it says. The report doesn’t mention it, but the US government is simultaneously seeking greater powers over federal funding, which would allow political appointees at funding agencies to screen or cancel research grants mid-project. The White House is also seeking to slash the NSF’s budget by more than half in 2027, although similar cuts proposed for 2026 were blocked by Congress. Convenient hookThis has worried some that the metascience agenda could be misused as a kind of smokescreen to further weaken universities. James Wilsdon, executive director of the Research on Research Institute at University College London, said that the report contains lots of “interesting ideas” and agrees that in places, academia is a “pretty broken system.” But the risk is that metascience is being deployed as a “convenient hook” to support cuts and a “political land grab” to transfer grant power from scientists to political appointees in US funding agencies.So far, the metascience agenda hasn’t been seized on by radical right parties in Europe. But Wilsdon worries it will cross the Atlantic, politicising research reform efforts and making them more difficult to carry out. The report is already making some in Europe sceptical of the entire idea. “The system is not without flaws, but the metascience discussion is not likely to improve the system but rather to generate munition to undermine it,” said Claes de Vreese, a professor of AI and society at the University of Amsterdam. Peter Thiel protégéOfficially, Science: A New Golden Age has just one named author: Michael Kratsios, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and a former chief of staff to Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel. He also served as chief financial officer of Thiel’s Clarium Capital Management. Since the 1990s, Thiel has criticised US universities for moving away from teaching what he views as the classic works of western civilisation, and drifting towards “anti-Western zealotry.” And since 2011, he has offered two-year fellowships of $250,000 to young people to skip or drop out of university, and instead start companies or pursue scientific research. “College can be good for learning about what’s been done before, but it can also discourage you from doing something new,” according to the Thiel Fellowships website. In other areas, the Trump administration has promoted academics with a longstanding interest in metascience. For example, the head of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, in 2020 co-authored a study arguing the funder backs overly conservative proposals, although he achieved wider prominence as a critic of pandemic lockdowns. Careless talk costs fundingEven before the Trump administration embraced the metascience agenda, some metascientists privately wondered whether they should be careful not to overstate dysfunctions in academia, in case this gets used as ammunition against universities. But others think being cautious with criticism is pointless. After all, last year, the Trump administration sought to cut funding from US universities on an entirely different premise: supposed antisemitism on campus. “I don't think these governments need a technical metascientific excuse to attack the universities, they will want to do so anyway,” said Will Stone, a researcher at Science Works, a new think tank advocating for a “metascience revolution” in the UK. “I think researchers should report what they find, even when the findings may be used to advance policies they disagree with,” echoed Russell Funk, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, who in 2023 co-authored a highly influential paper that argued scientific papers were becoming less disruptive over time. No justificationThat said, Funk thinks that metascientific research certainly doesn’t justify a weakening of universities. Instead, scientists need “time, resources and stability to pursue unfamiliar ideas,” he said. “Taking away those conditions works against the very goal the reforms are supposed to achieve.”The Institute for Progress, a Washington DC-based innovation policy think tank that has championed X-Labs and metascience units, also says that reforms should complement, not supplant, universities. “Unpredictable, unreliable, and reduced federal funding to researchers is destabilising to the very foundations of research and development and is bad,” said Jenn Gustetic, the institute’s director of metascience and R&D policy.Evolution or revolution?This points to a much bigger divide in the metascience community: how far and how fast should public R&D be shaken up? Does it need evolution or revolution? For example, Science: A New Golden Age says the science system relies too heavily on traditional “workhorse” project grants, the type that pay out around $250,000 a year to fund “hypothesis-driven science by small teams on tractable questions.” However, in criticising project grants, the report “decisively picks one side of a debate that is far from settled,” David Hilmer Rex, a metascientist based in Denmark, has written. In June, Pierre Azoulay, a metascientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, defended project grants, saying that the alternative of X-Labs “merits scepticism.”A-B testingOne challenge in metascience is that it’s easier to generate evidence for some types of change than others. Most straightforwardly, research funders can run A-B tests on different ways of awarding money. For example, Germany’s Volkswagen Foundation recently trialled distributed peer review, where applicants rate each other’s proposals, and measured its results against traditional review panels. Distributed peer review made quicker decisions, although awarded money to largely different ideas. However, much of the focus of the metascience movement has been on founding fast-moving and free-acting new research organisations and funders, in contrast to the alleged stodginess of mainstream academia or public innovation grants. A culture of speed and freedom are the animating principles behind Germany’s Sprind or the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria).Related articlesViewpoint: it's time to experiment with how Europe funds science European researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationHowever, while it’s possible to closely study previously successful bodies, such as the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), for historical clues to their secret sauce, it’s impossible to guarantee in advance that the likes of Sprind or Aria will actually work as hoped. But advocates of new organisations say this inherent uncertainly shouldn’t stop us trying. “If we wait for definitive proof that something will work before we try it, I don't know where your proof is coming from,” said Stone. Trade-offsUp until now, experiments in metascience haven’t generally come with hard trade-offs over money. In the US, new ideas such as focused research organisations have often been funded by billionaire philanthropists. In Europe, new innovation agencies such as Sprind and Aria, or the Netherland’s new National Agency for Disruptive Innovation, haven’t needed explicit cuts elsewhere in the research system. But with the $1.5 billion establishment of X-Labs by the NSF, the trade-offs are becoming clearer. Some metascientists privately wonder whether a smaller pilot would have been more appropriate, given that the idea is untested. The Institute for Progress counters that the $1.5 billion X-Labs budget is spread out over a decade, so will account for less than 2% of the NSF’s annual budget. “It’s important to remember that [Darpa] was once an institutional experiment as well. Now it’s one of the most cited innovative funding models in the world,” said Gustetic.As for Europe?The US isn’t the only country placing metascience at the heart of its research strategy. Science: A New Golden Age looks admiringly at the UK, which in 2024 set up a Metascience Unit to scrutinise how it funds research. In Brussels, it’s more of a mixed picture. In 2018, the EU set up the European Innovation Council to funnel grants and equity to start-ups, although it’s sometimes criticised for awarding money too slowly. Recently, the council has started experimenting with challenges, where teams of inventors compete to overcome a technological challenge. The European Commission also wants to experiment with partially randomising grant winners, to cut down on bureaucracy. However, the Commission’s own advisers have said the EU’s own research schemes are too conventional. They want the Commission to establish a new dedicated unit to scrutinise and experiment with funding. But there’s no sign of a such unit emerging in Brussels’ plans for the next Horizon Europe programme, which from 2028 is set to distribute more than €160 billion over seven years. Sam Bogerd, director of breakthrough innovation at the Brussels-based Arq Foundation, an AI-focused think tank that also looks at metascience, says that Europe might have the opposite problem to the US: universities and basic research funding are still reasonably well supported, but there’s not enough experimentation. “We're not taking a close enough look at where this money can achieve the most, and I am worried that the good ideas around metascience will be tainted politically by their association with the Trump administration,” he said. He’s still lobbying for the Commission to set up an experimental unit. But in the meantime, the Arq Foundation plans to do its own research, and is currently hiring two metascience researchers to run the rule over how Brussels spends research funding.
EU science policy wonks debate prospect of stronger ties with Canada
Europe’s research and innovation sector has started asking questions on how European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s offer to make Canada “the first associate member of the EU” would actually work in practice, and who will get to shape priorities in a transatlantic relationship that is getting stronger. The Commission says it wants “a new model of association” under which the EU and Canada will aim to develop “a shared space” to face ongoing challenges. “Working in close coordination with our member states and the European Parliament, we will aim to create a new form of partnership that has not existed until now, building the closest imaginable form of association with a partner outside Europe,” a spokesperson told Science|Business.Locked in an escalating trade war with US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly talked of annexing Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been looking east, but full EU membership was never in play. Taking the floor a day after von der Leyen’s proposal, he agreed to strengthen ties under “an alliance of the future” but reined in enthusiasm on the new label. He also suggested expanding Canada’s involvement in the Erasmus+ student mobility scheme, to which it currently has limited access, and the next iteration of Horizon Europe. Canada joined the present Horizon Europe in 2024, but only contributes to collaborative projects.Neither side has detailed the next practical steps in developing this new relationship. “I think nobody at the moment truly knows how this will work,” said Michael Browne, chief executive and founder of Crowdhelix, a global collaborative network that connects players in research and innovation. “It’s more of a statement of intent for closer collaboration, which requires legislative frameworks and approval processes, which have not started.”Kurt Deketelaere, secretary general of the League of European Research Universities, said von der Leyen’s pitch to Canada is “politically significant, but the legal content still has to be negotiated and constructed.”Mattias Björnmalm, secretary general of the Cesaer university group, agreed that she had only opened “a political door” to Canada, as “associate membership does not come with a predefined set of rights in the EU institutions.”Not only does this status not currently exist as a legal category in the two treaties that set up how the EU functions, but the Commission president cannot unilaterally create a new category of EU membership.According to Deketelaere, Article 217 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, which allows the bloc to make association deals with non-EU countries involving reciprocal rights and duties, is “the most obvious existing legal basis for building a much deeper EU-Canada relationship.”Getting universities involvedNo matter how this new cooperation takes shape, Liviu Matei, who heads the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, hopes to see universities involved in discussions from an early stage.“Its primary motivations, entirely justifiably, are political and geopolitical,” he said. “In the area of higher education, however, restricting the initiative to political and geopolitical considerations would limit the scope of cooperation and lead to distorted frameworks and counterproductive implementation.”It is all the more important since academic interests on the two sides of the Atlantic are “neither identical nor fully aligned,” Matei added. “This is not insurmountable; it simply requires work to articulate the details of this privileged cooperation, including its governance and funding frameworks, as well as its substantive content in education and research.”Related articlesCanada looks to deepen research and education links with the EUZaharieva hopes for a Horizon Europe deal in 2026Canada might participate in European Research Council schemes, for example, which was not on offer in the present Horizon Europe association agreement. But “there would have to be something in it for the EU,” Browne said. “They don’t want to be funding projects outside of the EU where intellectual property is going to sit outside of the EU. There has to be some kind of transfer of knowledge.”But access to funding will not by itself resolve all the practical difficulties of working together, said Björnmalm. “For researchers and students, these include visas and residence arrangements, recognition of qualifications and study periods, and the conditions for pursuing a research career across borders,” he said. “For universities, there is scope for more predictable access to shared laboratories, computing and research data, and stronger support for joint doctoral training and long-term institutional partnerships.”Linda Doyle, provost and president of Trinity College Dublin, said Europe should strive for the “closest possible expression” of this new political alliance. “If Europe is serious about recovering its voice and its place in the world, it needs to be strongly allied with countries who share its values and its vision for a stable, rules-based, peaceful world.”
Is the era of political debates over in Florida?
President Donald Trump set a precedent of forgoing debates. Now Florida candidates leading the ticket believe their time is better spent elsewhere.
🗞️ Diomandé, Raphinha, Javier Aguirre... Variety on Thursday's front pages
Football headlines are being dominated by the debate over Real Madrid’s lineup, Valencia’s signing of Javier Aguirre, the mileage burden on Raphinha, and the feat of the women’s under-20 team. ...
Iowa judge dismisses Trump’s lawsuit against Des Moines Register and pollster
The judge said that allowing the lawsuit and its “faulty” claims to proceed could have a chilling effect on journalists and public debate.
Pat McAfee stopped his show after seeing a troubling message
Pat McAfee addressed a troubling online message during his ESPN show, sparking fresh debate about threats, social media and sports media.
Unitaid marks 20 years and asks that global health reform be driven by equitable access
Created in 2006 by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom, Unitaid has spent two decades turning innovation into access for millions. As leaders debate the future of global health, it asks that reform be held to the same test.
San Francisco’s public-safety technology isn’t the problem — the politics around it is
Amid a local Democratic Party debate, supervisor makes the case for retaining automated tools while strengthening oversight and protecting against misuse.
Jared Kaplan's AI safety concerns last year gain traction at Anthropic
Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's chief science officer, is a crucial figure in AI development. He also foresaw the doom debate hinging on AI training itself.
Italy hope for new dawn under Mancini
After months of soul-searching, controversy and debate, Italy are ready to let football do the talking again as Roberto Mancini kickstarts his second spell in charge."We went to meet him in Barcelona, we had lunch together, we talked for an entire day.
Superintendent candidates spar over funding, private schools and politics
Debbie Critchfield and Becky Sundin Mitchell laid out different approaches to Idaho’s education system during Tuesday’s debate.
Bills Roundtable Podcast Ep 49: An Unstoppable Offense
Josh Allen’s high-powered unit is dismantling defenses, but major defensive lapses and key injuries threaten Buffalo’s perfection. Mike Straw and Anthony Moeglin debate if this formula is sustainable.
Money in San Francisco Politics: Who’s Spending Big on the Election? (Live Event Oct. 8)
Wealthy special interests are ascendant in San Francisco’s political debates, and critics say they are trying to grab more power over elections. How the money-in-politics landscape looks going forward is up to voters. Join the San Francisco Public Press and the League of Women Voters San Francisco for a panel discussion.
Spectrum News to host 3 debates in races for statewide office
The three hour-long debates will be live at 7 p.m.
Lindsay Clancy case could spur state action on postpartum mental health
Lindsay Clancy’s mistrial is renewing debate over postpartum mental healthcare as states consider expanded screening, home visits and insurance coverage.
‘College sports is in chaos’: Protect College Sports Act advances through Senate
The U.S. Senate could vote as soon as this week to move the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 to the U.S. House of Representatives after the Senate voted on Sept. 17 to advance the bill to final debate. This sweeping new bill would protect Olympic sports, reshape how universities compensate athletes and regulate name,...
Chicago Blackhawks Coach Makes his Stance Clear on Analytics
One of the great debates when looking at the modern NHL game has been how much to rely on analytics when it comes to assessing on-ice play. While analytics can provide more usual information that may be missed by the casual observer, there are often flaws with how these models function. Sometimes, the old school […] The post Chicago Blackhawks Coach Makes his Stance Clear on Analytics appeared first on HEAVY.
Voters cite political climate, economy and homelessness as Oregon governor race nears
With Oregon’s governor race 43 days away, voters tell KATU they’re uneasy about the political climate. Fears about inflation, Social Security, homelessness and vote-by-mail shape the debate.
Albertsons CEO Susan Morris to Keynote 13th Annual Treasure Valley Business Breakfast
The College of Idaho will host the 2026 Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Debate on Tuesday, September 22, at 7 p.m. in the Langroise Center.
Archaeologists uncover centuries-old mystery of Tampa Bay’s secret community of migrant potters
Key Points Archaeologists have debated for decades over how Mississippian-style pottery ended up in Tampa Bay, an area long left off of maps showing the Mississippian culture stretching across the Southeast and into northern Florida starting a thousand years ago. Trevor Duke, a doctoral stud
Should government rethink its wager on sports betting?
Is it a matter of free will or vice? The Beacon’s Counterpoint columnists debate gambling on sports contests.
Adidas to release final Germany kit on November 3
In a promotional video featuring prominent football figures, Germany's equipment supplier Adidas announced that they will release one more football kit on November 3 to mark the end of its partnership with the German Football Federation (DFB). In the video published on social media on Monday, Joachim Löw, Jürgen Klinsmann, Philipp Lahm, Manuel Neuer and Florian Wirtz, among others, debate on which Germany jersey is the most beautiful one in history.
Swiss business groups pressure parliament over UBS capital rules before vote
ZURICH, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Swiss business groups have weighed into the debate on tougher capital rules for UBS, writing to lawmakers to lobby against what they say risks being "excessive" regulation drawn up for the bank after the 2023 collapse of C...
Swiss business groups pressure parliament over UBS capital rules before vote
ZURICH, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Swiss business groups have weighed into the debate on tougher capital rules for UBS, writing to lawmakers to lobby against what they say risks being
Wars, AI and climate change top agenda as leaders gather for U.N.
The general debate begins Tuesday and runs through Sept. 26.
LASK capitulation a major factor in Celtic’s current woes
Despite starting the campaign well enough, Celtic’s form has taken a massive nosedive over the last week or so and the reason behind that is the topic of much debate…LASK vs Celtic, Linz 25 August...
Baby girls’ greater interest in faces offers clue to nature v nurture debate
Study finds overall differences between groups of newborns by sex that are likely to be determined by biology
Editorial: Debate over restructuring MUSC is too big for board alone
The coming departure of MUSC's president has raised the question of whether the college’s academic and health care missions should be overseen by different leaders. Lawmakers should make the call.
The data center backlash is reshaping American politics — one community at a time
With striking speed, the widespread debate around data centers has become a fault line in American communities, cutting across political parties and forging unexpected alliances.
Florida voters won’t see a debate between Jolly and Donalds
Is the debate dead in Florida?
Massachusetts' plan to offer postpartum screening home visits sparks online debate
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is investing $2.25 million to send nurses into homes of new parents, sparking a heated government overreach debate.
David Jolly declines election debates against Byron Donalds
MIAMI, Fla. (WINK) — Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for Florida Governor, announced he will not debate Republican nominee Byron Donalds in the general election.Jolly released a
David Jolly declines to debate Byron Donalds in Fort Myers race
MIAMI, Fla. (WINK) — Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for Florida Governor, announced he will not debate Republican nominee Byron Donalds in the general election.Jolly released a
Why politicians should pay more attention to the polls (reprise)
Welcome to the 231st edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), a polling newsletter that always welcomes new readers. So please don’t keep TWIP a secret; share it with your friends and colleagues: Share The Week in Polls With all the stories swirling around Reform, JL Partners and political polling, I am finally tearing myself away from talking about the regulation of polling this week - and instead re-running a previous piece reminding us why the solution to problems with polls isn’t simply to ban or ignore them. Rather, we need them to play a vital role in making our politics - and politicians - better. This is followed by summaries of the latest national voting intention polls, seat projections from MRPs and the most recent party leader ratings. Subscribers who pay for the full edition can also read ten insights from the latest polls and analyses, including: A trio of organisations and a pair of professors have been casting their eyes over the Liberal Democrats ahead of the party’s autumn conference; What impact did the summer heatwave have on views on climate change? and Which wins out between chocolate and cheese? If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can read all ten by starting a free trial now: Get FREE 7-day trial For more polling news as it comes in ahead of next week’s edition, you can also follow The Week in Polls on Bluesky. Picking up on my doubt last week about whether or not 35% of British train travellers have tried to order a takeaway for delivery to a railway station or carriage, thank you to reader Iain, who has been in touch to say he has done just that… in India. Another quick pair of updates, this time on the controversies around Reform and polling. Politico has a further scoop - “Farage aide caught in donor sting attended Egypt retreat with JL Partners” - and Ian Dunt has written about the problems with polling too: “Seeing the response of many polling experts in the last few weeks suggests that they are nervous about what is happening and keen to mitigate against it. Seeing the response of journalists, which has been basically non-existent, suggests the precise opposite.” My usual reminder as well: please do hit reply if you’ve spotted a poll, focus group or new piece of poll-based research that you think should be in contention for coverage in a future edition. Thank you! And with that, on with the show. How politicians get public opinion wrong I have written before about the benefits that come from widespread availability of high-quality political polling. We need more polls and more good coverage of polls. However, what I’ve not dug into before is the research into how accurately politicians estimate public opinion on issues. Thankfully we have academic research to tell us. First, the bad news: We present results from a study of 866 politicians in four countries.1 Politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of public support for various policy proposals. Comparing more than 10,000 estimations with actual levels of public support, we conclude that politicians are quite inaccurate estimators of people’s preferences. They make large errors and even regularly misperceive what a majority of the voters wants. Politicians are hardly better at estimating public preferences than ordinary citizens. Walgrave, S., Jansen, A., Sevenans, J., Soontjens, K., Pilet, J.B., Brack, N., Varone, F., Helfer, L., Vliegenthart, R., van der Meer, T., Breunig, C., Bailer, S., Sheffer, L. & Loewen, P.J. (2023a), “Inaccurate Politicians: Elected Representatives’ Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries”, The Journal of Politics, 85(1): 209-222. The bad news is not quite as bad as that makes it sound because, when asked whether the majority of public opinion was for or against various policies, politicians picked the wrong option ‘only’ 29% of the time. However, this included getting it wrong even when public opinion is far from evenly split on an issue: They do not only get it wrong when the public is divided and hard to read (e.g., when there is a 51%:49% distribution). Seventy percent of the misplacements occur for policies with a relatively clear distribution of at least 60% (dis)agreeing citizens. Moreover, the public scored only slightly worse than politicians, picking the wrong option 2.7 out of 8 times on average, compared with 2.3 times for politicians. Turning to the other measure of accuracy (not which side is in the lead but what the percentage support is for each side), politicians on average were 18 percentage points out in their guesses. Again, this was only slightly better than the public, whose error came in at 21 percentage points.2 Further research, using the same mix of countries, gives a little more comfort about how (in)accurate perceptions are: We show that politicians have a better understanding of public opinion when they think the issue matters to voters. Further, when an issue is personally important to politicians they more accurately estimate their party supporters’ opinions. The results confirm that politicians hold more accurate perceptions of voters’ preferences when they think it is important to do so but not necessarily when the issues actually are important to voters. Butler, C., Walgrave, S., Soontjens, K. & Loewen, P.J. (2024), “Politicians are better at estimating public opinion when they think it is more salient”, Party Politics: 1–13. Even so, it’s not a good picture. The remedy for this? Politicians should spend more time reading the polls. So forward this newsletter to someone you know… Share For a more general argument against banning polls, see my 2024 piece. Is “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” good advice or not? The latest episode of my Political Fictions podcast heads across the Atlantic for a dip into one of the political TV classics: Mark and Cory talk about a giant of American political drama for the first time this week, as they tackle The West Wing. They talk about Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, the nineteenth episode of series one. In it, Mark wonders if The West Wing is actually the epitome of the “Boris Johnson school of politics”, Cory outmanoeuvres Mark into confirming we will record a Christmas Special about Love, Actually and they debate whether the central message of this episode has been misunderstood. Cory’s email newsletter is Paperback Rioter and Mark has a family of email newsletters. Subscribe to our newsletter for some additional bonus content and to get alerted whenever a new episode comes out. Our theme tune is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod/incompetech.com and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. You can also listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the web or YouTube. Elsewhere from me… [ A Lord's Eye View How to fix the problem of money in our politics Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords. This time I am taking a look at how our political system is regulated, and the protections we need to keep democracy safe from becoming simply a contest to see who has the biggest bank account… Read more 5 days ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Mark Pack ](https://lordseyeview.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-the-problem-of-money-in?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=1269283) If you spot a factual error… Borrowing an idea from Stuart Ritchie and others, if you spot a factual error in an edition of this newsletter, I will give you a free 12-month subscription to the paid-for version (or an extra 12 months on your existing one). Factual errors qualify, but grammatical errors or disagreements over interpretation do not, and my decision is final. Messages about both of those are always welcome, though. Voting intention and leadership ratings Here are the latest voting intention polls from different pollsters. It is all pretty static at the moment, with a small and consistent Labour lead in nearly all the polls. The table is also online here, along with explanations about what is included. It is updated regularly throughout the week as new polls are released. Next are the seat projections from MRPs, also sorted by fieldwork dates, listing those which are based on dedicated fieldwork (rather than models based on averages of other polls). Because such MRPs are published infrequently, some of the entries below are quite old. Finally, here is a summary of leadership ratings, with a graph from PollCheck: Detailed numbers from the latest polls are online here, and both that and the graph are updated regularly throughout the week as new data comes out. For historical figures on both voting intention and leader approval stretching back to the 1930s, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase. Catch up on the previous two editions [ ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/a-crisis-point-for-political-polling) [ A crisis point for political polling Sep 13 ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/a-crisis-point-for-political-polling) [ Read full story ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/a-crisis-point-for-political-polling) [ ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/extra-questions-about-the-polls-in) [ Extra questions about the polls in Reform’s funding scandal Sep 6 ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/extra-questions-about-the-polls-in) [ Read full story ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/extra-questions-about-the-polls-in) My privacy policy and other legal information are available here. Links to purchase books or other items are usually affiliate links which pay a commission for each sale. Quotes from social media messages are occasionally lightly edited for punctuation and clarity. If you are subscribed to other email lists of mine, please note that unsubscribing from this one will not automatically remove you from the others. If you wish to be removed from all my lists, simply reply to this email to let me know. A quintet of Lib Dem polling analyses, and 9 other polling insights you shouldn’t miss The following ten findings from the most recent polls and analyses are only for subscribers who pay for the full edition, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away. Ahead of the start of Liberal Democrat conference, we have a trio of organisations and a pair of professors with pieces out about Ed Davey’s party:
Trump and sons invest heavily in AI economy as he resists calls for slowdown
Trump’s decisions as president on one of the most consequential policy debates of his administration could affect the value of his personal investments.
Saturday Night Open Thread: Can’t Stand *Pats
Come and join this merry band of Steelers’ faithful for some lively debate about our Steelers, good food, music, and the merits of the odd cold beverage.
Colorado Politics Calendar Sept. 21-27
CoPo’s weekly political calendar will help you find political and public-policy events throughout Colorado. It includes candidate and issue campaign events, public policy meetings, court hearings, state and local party conventions, assemblies, debates, rallies, parades, speaking engagements, traveling dignitary appearances, water meetings, book signings, county commission hearings, city council meetings and more. As a subscriber, […]
Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash
A heated debate took place in the Oval Office on Friday, with some Trump officials accusing the National Institutes of Health of funding grants that conflict with the president’s agenda.
Pacific Beach boardwalk-driving suspect ignites mental health diversion debate
San Diego County judges granted mental health diversion in over three hundred felony cases in 2025, and suspects reoffended in more than a quarter of those cases.
How to think about the AI safety debate without losing your head
Stop treating the artificial intelligence threat like a political team sport.
The AI debate takes the political spotlight: From the Politics Desk
Plus, tracking Attorney General Todd Blanche’s political appearances.
UA Trustees seek review of athletic program competitiveness
With Razorback football program failure becoming an obvious concern debated with varying degrees of vigor in many breakfast diners statewide, a member of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees...
The Political Recap: The debate over political deabtes
Capitol Bureau reporter Tyler Englander breaks down what happened in Virginia politics this week.
Buffalo debate grows over O.J. Simpson at new stadium
A Buffalo group wants O.J. Simpson restored to the Bills Wall of Fame, reigniting debate over legacy, history and the team's decision.
Scientology-backed Clearwater entertainment complex clears roadblock
A Church of Scientology-backed $50 million entertainment center in downtown Clearwater cleared an early hurdle Thursday, after lengthy public comment and City Council debate. In a 3-2 vote Thursday, t...
Clearwater City Council approves street transfers tied to EVO Entertainment Center
After hours of heated debate and public comment, Clearwater City Council voted 3-2 Thursday night to approve another street transfer tied to the Church of Scientology.
How existential fears are shaping the debate over AI
The current round of panic over artificial intelligence is based on the conviction that the technology has slipped out of human control to do its own bidding in several recent
Tech stocks today: Apple's iPhone 18 Pro goes on sale, AI safety debate continues
Tech stock news for the week of Sept. 14.
AI fears spark a partisan slugfest, helping no one
The AI debate is just heating up. President Trump must acknowledge the public’s concerns and help the industry land on a safer path.
AI safety debate meets reality at Dreamforce as business leaders say last year's models are enough
At Salesforce's annual mega-conference in San Francisco, attendees said they get enough value from older AI models.
As tech honchos call for regulation, AI policy has largely stalled
The debate over AI policy has widened after executives called for slower development and guardrails.
‘Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic’ is outdated. Here’s why
Brad Pitt’s reported return to drinking in “a more restrained manner” has fueled debate around what constitutes recovery from alcohol use disorder.
Analysis | Congress is getting older, and Americans aren’t happy
This was a significant week in the debate about aging politicians.
Republican candidates' appearance at a USF football game sparks debate
Ahead of Saturday’s game against Delaware State, the presence of two Republican candidates at USF's home opener two weeks ago continues to spark a conversation about state universities hosting political candidates.
Europe’s political Islam debate moves beyond counter-terrorism |
Muslim and human-rights organisations have warned that an expansive definition of political Islam could blur the distinction between legitimate political participation and extremism.
Should Bengals Quarterback Joe Burrow Play Through His Latest Injury?
Cincinnati’s star quarterback refuses to sit despite a painful back injury, sparking a high-stakes debate over whether his legendary toughness risks the Bengals' entire postseason future.
Josh Shapiro wades into AI debate with call for ‘strict guardrails’
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday called for greater federal regulation of artificial intelligence while criticizing President Donald Trump for minimizing concerns, saying “We cannot ignore the warning signs nor downplay the very real risks.”
ASU-TV to host debates in October
Arkansas State University’s ASU-TV will host three political debates in October for candidates vying for office. The debates will be on Oct. 1, 8 and 22. The Oct. 1 debate...
Understanding the world, from the Cold War to the age of AI
For 75 years, the MIT Center for International Studies has brought together social scientists, engineers, and practitioners to understand global change, shape public debate, and address generational challenges.
Political party leaders contrast visions at forum
How does a nonpolitical organization help keep the public informed about political issues without getting political? The Western Institute of Lifelong Learning decided the solution was not a debate, but an event presenting the differing — and sometimes nondiffering — perspectives on certain issues held by representatives of Grant County’s major political parties. “Party Perspectives: A Conversation on the Issues” was presented Wednesday in Western New Mexico University’s Besse-Forward Global...
Can researchers trust that AI models won’t leak their ideas?
Research funders are asking how they can stop confidential scientific ideas in grant proposals from leaking out through large language models (LLMs), for example if reviewers use AI to help them judge applications. Last week, a row erupted in mathematics after OpenAI announced it had solved a notoriously difficult problem, only for another mathematician to demand answers over whether the company had used ideas he had fed into its models. The spat, and the broader issue of idea leakage through AI models, was discussed by funders at an R&D policy conference held in Paris on September 14. At worst, it threatens to undermine the correct attribution of breakthroughs, one of the foundations of modern science. The mathematics dispute around OpenAI is “certainly something we're looking at” Jason Gallo, head of the newly established Office of Metascience at the US National Science Foundation (NSF), told the Blue Sky Forum, hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The controversy started on September 8, when OpenAI announced it had cracked a mathematical problem that had gone unsolved for 90 years. Using a swarm of AI agents, millions of dollars’ worth of computing power and a new internal model, the company said it had finally proved that a long-used formula for modelling fluid dynamics breaks down under certain conditions. However, Tristan Buckmaster, a New York University mathematician who had been independently working with collaborators on the same problem using OpenAI’s Codex tool, hit back with a statement questioning whether the company had snooped on his Codex sessions to gain an advantage. OpenAI has always denied it looked up the “specific user data” of Buckmaster and colleagues. However, the company initially admitted that “while unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models,” although its proofs “differ significantly” from Buckmaster’s. The firm later said that, following an investigation, it concluded that Buckmaster’s Codex prompts “could not have influenced the [OpenAI] system in any way, including through training.”Funder concernYet OpenAI’s initial admission that its model might have ingested Buckmaster’s ideas, then spat them out to its own mathematicians, has scientistsworriedthat their work could leak out if shared with AI. Some AI tools give users an opt-out option to stop their sessions from training the model. If such guarantees can be trusted, this gives scientists some confidence they can use an LLM to develop an idea without the risk of it leaking out.But there’s a bigger potential vulnerability. To win money to investigate ideas, scientists have to share them with funding bodies. These grant proposals are normally kept strictly confidential, to prevent other scientists from scooping them, or to protect commercially valuable intellectual property. To preserve this confidentiality, when the NSF uses AI models, “we have to be sure that it's not making server calls out to an external party, leaking that data,” said Gallo to delegates in Paris. Leaks through reviewersHowever, funders normally use external academic reviewers to assess proposals. And there are growing worries that these reviewers are feeding grant ideas into AI models to help them make a judgement. Research funders have noticed that peer review reports and funding recommendations have “suddenly become much longer, more detailed and complex,” said Diogo Machado, head of the data science unit at Technopolis, a science and technology-focused consultancy. “The sense is that reviewers are increasingly using generative AI in their review work, even where guidelines sometimes forbid it,” he told Science|Business. “This is very difficult for funders to control or prove.” Happening at scaleThis sharing of confidential proposals with AI models is “happening at scale already,” said James Wilson, executive director of the Research on Research Institute, based at University College London, during the debate in Paris. In response, Gallo said the NSF had “strict guidance” around the uploading of proposals to AI models. But he added the NSF was mulling new types of assessment to make sure applicants were truly the originators of their ideas, such as following a short-form proposal with an oral presentation, which would allow the foundation to “really interrogate the investigator on their intellectual contribution.” Related articlesHow can Europe cope with a flood of AI-assisted research grant proposals?The risks and benefits of AI in screening research grant proposals Viewpoint: AI could make scientific overload worse“For us as funders, a lot of the ways to ensure that the application remains the applicant's own intellectual contribution, those ways are quite regressive,” Peter Clifford, head of strategy at Research Ireland, told delegates. “They're maybe ten or 15 or 20 years old, and they don't scale particularly well.” Disputes over the origin of ideas are as old as modern science. Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz spent more than a decade arguing over who invented calculus, for example. And long before LLMs emerged, academics would agonise over how much of their early work to reveal at conferences, in case their colleagues scooped them, Jack Leahy, a senior metascience advisor to the UK government, told delegates. But AI was “accelerating” the “problems of the system,” he said.
Political disagreement in 719 is becoming more hostile
Something has changed in the way we disagree with each other politically in the 719. Something important. Public debate has always been messy in Colorado Springs. People get angry or protest. They organize. They pack meeting rooms and demand answers. Those things make sense. But lately, I have been watching policy and political disagreement become […]
Why AI consciousness could become the next great societal divide
Ideally, experts should guide this debate. Unfortunately, they disagree too.
Analysis | Trump won by latching on to popular issues. He’s doing the opposite on AI.
It's been stunning to see this president so firmly position himself on the unpopular side of the debate around AI and data centers.
Energy rebate checks fuel debates over politics and policy
Republican candidate Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman called the checks “peanuts” this week.
Energy rebate checks fuel debates over politics and policy
Republican candidate Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman called the checks “peanuts” this week.
What Does the Science of Climate Change Really Look Like?
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on how the Right should think about environmental and climate policy. Read Chris Barnard on Reclaiming Environmental Policy from the Left. More than a decade ago, the world’s governments negotiated and signed the Paris Climate Agreement, committing to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. In the following years, climate had immense cultural power. Greta Thunberg emerged. Fortune 500 companies established net-zero plans. The U.S. got the Inflation Reduction Act. Then the pendulum swung back. President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, speaking of green energy as a “scam” and carbon footprints as a “hoax” and on all matters of international policy emphasizing bilateral engagement and power over globalism and cooperation. The technology companies that had been at the forefront of net-zero pledges and green leadership discovered the importance of all-of-the-above power to their visions for artificial intelligence and began quietly postponing or removing their targets. On the left side of the political spectrum, rising concerns about inflation and cost pushed climate lower down in the stated priorities of voters and stump speeches of politicians. The moment is ripe for a reset on the politics of climate change and for conservatives especially to chart a course that acknowledges and addresses the real challenges in plausible ways. So what should we think about climate change as we enter a post-peak climate era? If it is neither an apocalypse nor a hoax, what will hold up as a durable view of climate change? And how does it project onto the concerns and priorities of the right-of-center’s emerging coalition? New to Commonplace_? Subscribe below to get the magazine in your inbox._ Subscribe A Solid Foundation As the politics and economics of climate careened over the past ten years, the physics carried on regardless. In 2015, the year the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted, the world emitted 41.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. By 2025, emissions had risen only 2.4%, to 42.2 gigatonnes, because falling emissions from land use offset increasing emissions from fossil fuels. But slow growth in annual emissions is not rapid decline, let alone net-zero, so carbon dioxide kept accumulating in the atmosphere, going from 399 to 426 parts per million. Global temperature kept rising too, from about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 average in 2015, to 1.4 degrees above it in 2025. None of this should surprise anyone. Even most prominent skeptics, like the authors of the 2025 report commissioned by the Trump administration’s Department of Energy, accept the basic physics. Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere at industrial volumes accumulates and traps heat that would otherwise escape to space. That heat warms the upper ocean and increases temperatures at the surface. Increased ocean heat and melting of land ice cause sea levels to rise. Changes in the climate become noticeable to us as subtle shifts in temperature and precipitation, seasons arriving early or late, changes in the surrounding ecosystem, and weather extremes. The much more meaningful debate is not about whether these things are happening, but about what it all means for human societies. (While it is a proxy measure of overall risk, no one experiences global surface temperature.) This debate invokes at least three interesting questions: how much today’s warming is showing up in regional climate trends, how much more warming we should anticipate, and how extreme weather events can be understood in the context of climate change. Recent scientific advances give us new insights into each of these, but there is still much to learn. This is the context in which the next generation of conservative leaders will be the first to deal with significant climate change as a fact, not a forecast. It will be with them for their entire careers. Our evolving scientific picture of climate change will come from weather and climate records stretching further into the past, new kinds of observations in the present, better modeling tools for the future, and simply more time to observe the emergence of climate signals and their tangible effects on ecosystems and communities in the United States and around the world. The policy landscape will be shaped by not only the impacts of changes in the climate, but also by the ways in which societies respond and by the emergence of new technologies for both altering the trajectory of emissions and adapting to new climate realities. Global climate records now show the fingerprints of warming in different phenomena around much of the world. The IPCC, in its most recent assessment report, documents warming trends over all land regions, even as natural variability adds substantial variance to local trends. And the highest temperature extremes have become more intense and frequent, almost everywhere, since the 1950s. Scientists are highly confident that these changes are attributable to human influence. But confidence in detecting trends and attributing them to human influence degrades across heavy precipitation events; drought trends are heterogeneous and not attributable to human activity with great confidence. For hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe storms there is even less confidence in trends or their relationship to climate change. In general, a fair summary of the evidence is that for well-observed phenomena, like surface temperature or heavy rainfall, with a clear relationship to warming, our multidecadal observations are consistent with human influence overcoming natural variability over long time periods and extremes increasing. For regions that are sampled more sparsely, or phenomena with a higher noise-to-signal ratio, we will need to observe them longer to understand the magnitude of the climate signal or improve dynamical understanding using models and observations together. But for Climate For those who can’t wait, we also have new techniques that attempt to understand the role climate change has in influencing particular extreme events. When the climate is changing and disaster strikes, it is natural to ask whether that disaster was somehow “caused” by climate change. For scientists and policymakers acting in good faith, answering that question helps develop a more accurate picture of the problem, how it may be getting worse, and what preparations we should be making to respond to it. It may, at some point, give some weight to how liability is assigned by courts or adaptation funding is distributed by society. But how we ask this question is extremely important. It is easy to get the analysis wrong by discounting the role that meteorology plays. As meteorologist Theodore Shepherd explained in a clear 2016 review of climate attribution methods, “if a weather or climate event is truly extreme in the present climate, then perforce it requires unusual meteorological conditions, which means that climate change is at most a contributing factor.” Share Scientists have two ways to probe climate as a contributing factor, both of which have entered media coverage of extreme weather events. One asks a probabilistic question: How much more likely is a particular event (e.g., a temperature record over a particular area) amid global warming? The answer involves using historical records and computer simulations to estimate the likelihood of such an event in both a changed and a preindustrial climate. The findings are less about the specific event, and more about events of that nature. The other question is: How has the changed climate affected the specific event in question? Here, scientists try to understand what a similar event would have looked like in the preindustrial climate. This is sometimes called the storyline approach, where the story is the specific meteorological details of the event. These methods offer ways to test the intuition of scientists about real weather extremes. In late June and early July of 2021, a persistent high-pressure ridge, or heat dome, set up over the Pacific Northwest and an extraordinary heat wave affected the area from Oregon to British Columbia. For six days, it shattered temperature records across the region and hundreds died from heat-related causes, in an area where such high, and persistently high, temperatures were well outside of experience and many live without air conditioning. Scientists have studied its connection to climate change using multiple approaches. This specific event was created by a rare combination of meteorological factors, a strong high-pressure ridge created the conditions for extreme heat, which occurred on top of higher average temperatures in the region from global warming. Probabilistic analyses showed that climate change increased the likelihood of such an event by at least 8-fold to more than 100-fold. One standout example found that such an event had effectively zero probability of occurring in the preindustrial climate. The enormous range in these assessments reflects how hard it is to estimate probabilities of events at the tail of the historical record. Estimates of the effect on the temperature of the event are more clustered. A recent review paper documents how multiple methodologies have found a positive influence, roughly 1-2 degrees Celsius of an anomaly that exceeded 15 degrees, of climate change on the temperature magnitude of the event. Multiple studies have investigated and found some positive influence of climate change in other extreme events. Attribution studies found climate likely increased the heavy rainfall that accompanied Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and surrounding regions in 2024. The extensive fires that struck Los Angeles in 2025 illustrate how the causal chain can become messy, though. Studies do detect a positive influence of climate on the event’s likelihood, but while climate change likely contributed to underlying aridity, it would not have played a role in the heavy winds or land practices that preceded disaster. These event attribution studies will become more common for extreme, or damaging, weather events. They can be produced quickly, and often are reported before peer review. As the Pacific Northwest heatwave example shows, when multiple methods converge on a positive attribution, the finding should probably carry some weight even if you have to be careful about accepting the results from a single study. I expect that as climate change proceeds and the climate thus departs further from a preindustrial counterfactual, the influence will become more detectable across a variety of extreme events and more easily identified. This will be used to cast blame, but can also be used to inform how communities and society adapt to ongoing change. We May Still Be Surprised One positive development, insofar as less climate change is better, has been that our central estimates for future climate change should probably be revised downward. Mostly, that is because the high-end warmings that scientists regularly analyzed about ten to 20 years ago, driven by high emissions throughout the twenty-first century, now appear to be somewhere between unlikely and impossible. At one time, the upper end of mainstream climate projections extended well into 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century, which, models suggest, would have wrought enormous real-world damage. Current energy and policy trends now point toward 2.5 or 3 degrees. Damages and risks are commonly modeled as increasing steeply with more warming, so this is already a better-than-previously-expected outcome for the climate (which is independent of the physical response to emissions). But we should maintain a wide range for plausible outcomes and prepare for the possibility of being surprised. Emissions trajectories are subject to deep uncertainty, the physical climate response is still developing, and whatever change occurs in the climate will then be mediated through unpredictable economic, social, and political institutions. Over the past decade, the pace of warming surprised some keen observers and appeared to accelerate, though not yet outside the range of expectation provided by climate models. The reasons for that apparent acceleration are being actively studied (as was the apparent pause in warming from 1998 to 2012), but no single driver has emerged. Some blame it on the El Niño, variability which would have no bearing on climate. Some think it is a result of factories in East Asia and global shipping fleets cutting aerosol emissions, which in the strongest version of the argument would indicate higher climate sensitivity to carbon-dioxide emissions. Others are more measured, not yet ready to draw solid conclusions as to whether climate projections require revision. We will have to see. Long-Term Thinking Climate change asks us to think over long time scales. But the pace of human-driven warming is compressing a large global change into a century. Changing weather patterns and extreme events are already causing adjustment costs and damages and will do more. Adaptation will help, but it is not free. For some communities, these costs will erode livelihoods and well-being, and may force migration. Are we prepared for large-scale managed retreats in the United States? Thankfully, American wealth, geographical diversity, and moderate climates may leave us better prepared than many around the world. But wealthy countries can still suffer serious disruption from narrowly concentrated costs, even if they appear entirely manageable in aggregate. Readers of Commonplace are familiar with the challenges of rapidly adapting to economic forces. The displacement that came from the China Shock is barely perceptible in aggregate GDP and employment data, but it affected millions of people and those people were far less mobile than economic models tended to assume. Deindustrialization rippled through the nation with enormous effects for not only our economic vitality, but also our national security. The forces surrounding climate change may not be so different; the world gets richer and must accept some diffuse costs. Those may be modest overall, but cause all manner of unpredictable effects with which policymakers must cope. In the case of the China Shock, our faith in a growing pie served us poorly. We’ll need to do better on climate. Leave a comment
Congress faces AI test as debate explodes over industry regulation
The Senate will get its first sneak peek Wednesday at just how hard it could be to pass even the most narrow of artificial intelligence legislation amid a growing debate over whether, if at all, to regulate the technology that industry leaders warn may pose doomsday threats to humanity. But do not expect the effort, […]
Specialties Honor Roll: Health Law
Health care is big business, and it’s constantly changing. New medicines and medical devices enter the market, regulations change and artificial intelligence is quickly changing the health care landscape. Ads for prescription drugs and health products are everywhere, while debates over access to care continue to make headlines. Behind all of it are legal issues. […]