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Colorado’s election audits are built on math, not politics
By Amanda Gonzalez You don’t build a secure election system overnight. You build it over years — layer by layer — reinforcing it with stronger safeguards, better technology and more transparency. In Colorado, one of those safeguards is a little-known but critically important process called a Risk-Limiting Audit (RLA). It’s math-driven, public and one of […]
AI science evaluation tools should be scrutinized through ‘critically engaged pragmatism’
Creators of AI tools need to be transparent about how they are designed, trained, and benchmarked to facilitate assessments of their purpose-specific reliability, liability to different kinds of er…
Jackie's care team shares health update on beloved bald eagle
Jackie, the bald eagle followed by thousands online, remains critically ill and \
Syria's Health Ministry corrects Damascus minibus blast toll: 14 wounded, no deaths
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's Health Ministry said Friday that 14 people were wounded, three of them critically, but that there were no fatalities in the explosion of a minivan taxi a day earlier in a Damascus suburb.
Politics over policy: The diesel export ban and the NRDC’s hypocrisy
Last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund asked its supporters to oppose the Trump administration’s proposal to increase exports of clean burning natural gas. But last week, when Trump suggested halting exports of dirtier burning diesel fuel, the NRDC was hypocritically silent.
This Critically Panned Political Dramedy Is A Top Movie On Streaming Right Now
From an unsettling crime doc to a Kelly Rowland-led rom-com, see what other movies are trending this week.
Ebola outbreak live updates: WHO upgrades risk to 'very high' and warns virus 'spreading rapidly'
Meanwhile, an American doctor who was flown to Germany for treatment after contracting the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo is "critically ill," his missionary group says.
Guild Wars 3, Modern Evolution of the MMORPG, Announced at Summer Game Fest for PC and PlayStation 5
/PRNewswire/ -- Critically-acclaimed game development studio ArenaNet® tonight announced Guild Wars 3™, the third entry in the legendary and beloved Guild...
Tiny, critically endangered bat rescued and released in Pennsylvania
A fungal disease has wiped out up to 97 percent of northern long-eared bats in North America.
A Realm Reborn in Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™
Cameron Williams discusses how Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY's designers brought the critically acclaimed MMORPG to Magic.
Fort Bragg Veteran celebrates expansion of high-end experiential entertainment brand
Photo provided by EscapologyAfter 15 years as an Army officer at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville resident Dan Cooke transitioned to business ownership to bring high-end experiential entertainment to North Carolina, applying strict military operational systems to scale his footprint across the state.Cooke got his start in the Army’s Boots to Business program.“Boots to Business was instrumental in preparing me to start a company. The program taught me how to develop a business plan, conduct market and financial analysis and critically evaluate whether a business concept was actually viable,” shared Cooke. “What made the program particularly valuable was that the instructors and mentors had real-world business experience…At the end of the course, I had to present and defend that plan. From there, they directed me to SCORE, where mentors helped me further refine the plan. I eventually presented it to a bank, which was impressed with the level of preparation, and I secured the financing necessary to build the business.”As Cooke neared the end of his military career, he began to wonder what would come next. Through his faith and some valuable mentors, he found the right avenue for his entrepreneurial interests.“While working on my instrument pilot rating, my flight instructor happened to tell me about escape rooms and the economics behind building them. He thought they could make for an interesting business. I took the analytical skills I had developed in the military, along with what I learned through Boots to Business, and began comparing the escape-room model against other opportunities I was considering,” explained Cooke. Cooke opened his first Escapology location in Fayetteville in 2019.“My approach was to start small and prove the model. Fayetteville made sense because I was already there, understood the market and could minimize my initial risk. It also became clear very quickly that I needed a partner that could provide the creative design, branding and industry knowledge that I did not have. After researching a number of options, Escapology became that partner,” added Cooke.Following the success of his initial venue in Fayetteville and a venue in Charlotte that opened in 2023, Cooke recently expanded into Raleigh with his third Escapology venue at Crabtree Valley Mall.His North Carolina footprint now includes:Fayetteville: A 5-room venue launched right after his Army transition in 2019.Charlotte: A 10-room venue opened in 2023, doubling his original operational footprint.Raleigh (Crabtree Valley Mall): A 6-room venue opened in May 2026, with plans to expand to 10 full rooms.Beyond his venues, Cooke expanded his local footprint by launching Jade Solutions in Aberdeen, N.C., an OEM manufacturing business that now builds prop and technical solutions for Escapology venues systemwide.Cooke shared that his long-term goal is to continue expanding Escapology in a healthy and sustainable way while enjoying the journey. “I actually did not start an entertainment business because I personally loved escape rooms. I started a business because I love the game of business itself. Growing up, I loved military simulation games and business tycoon games. I eventually had the opportunity to experience the first of those in the real world — I went to war, led troops and played my part in the military. Today, I would much rather apply that same drive to the real-world game of building businesses.I don't play business computer games anymore. I get to wake up and do it for real every day,” shared Cooke.
Annunciation steps up to raise money for teacher, staff mental health
Annunciation Catholic School is bringing the community together with an event features parents and community members, including Lt. Ryan Kelly, the first MPD officer on the scene of August's mass shooting, and Tom Forchas, whose daughter Sophia, was the most critically injured survivor.
A hidden weakness in deadly cancers could lead to powerful new treatments
A UCLA study has identified a hidden Achilles' heel in aggressive small cell cancers that have resisted new treatments for decades. Scientists found that tumors lacking the RB gene become critically dependent on the protein E2F3 for survival. Blocking E2F3 shut down tumor growth in laboratory models, and existing FDA-approved drugs may be able to exploit this vulnerability. The discovery could pave the way for faster development of more effective therapies.
Vanderbilt Health to lead nationwide initiative to improve outcomes for critically ill patients
Funded via ARPA-H, CIRCLE will combine advances in diagnostics and AI to speed development of next-generation interventions that identify and respond to harmful immunoinflammatory states before life-threatening complications occur.
The Perfect Sale To Build Your PlayStation Disc Collection
Critically-acclaimed exclusives are super discounted right now
Lost to Science for 89 Years, a Venomous Primate Has Been Sneaking Into People’s Homes and Gardens
Scientists working with Indonesia’s Alobi Wildlife Rescue Center have confirmed that the critically endangered Bangka slow loris—while excellent at hiding—is very much not extinct yet.
15 best TV shows to watch this fall
From a reimagining of a Stephen King classic to the return of a critically acclaimed crime drama, here are 16 shows to be excited about this fall.
The Medical Minute: Sweltering summer? Avoid heat-related illness
As temperatures soar this summer, the risk of heat-related illness does, too. Recognizing the symptoms of this preventable illness and getting swift treatment are critically important.
Single California condor mother gets help raising her chick
After coming back from the brink of extinction in the 1980s, the birds are still considered critically endangered.
MedStar Health introduces new helicopter to expand critical care capabilities
MedSTAR Transport, MedStar Health’s critical care transport program, is introducing a new Airbus H145 D3 helicopter to strengthen its ability to transport critically ill and injured patients across the Washington,
Smithsonian Brings Sandy Beach Scientists to Texas A&M Galveston
Scientists from the U.S. and South America are workshopping at Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) this week to expand sandy beach research and broaden collegiate learning opportunities.The Tides of Opportunity Project, co-led by the Smithsonian’s Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO) Program, TAMUG, the Smithsonian Marine Station, the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, and the University of Miami, is a collaborative monitoring project with marine science professors and their students.Tuesday, Aug. 18, through Friday, Aug. 21, 15 professors and marine science professionals from the United States, Brazil, Peru, and Urugay will co-design a sandy beaches monitoring protocol and associated course modules and test the protocol in the field.The goal is to incorporate sandy beach monitoring protocols into marine science courses, which college faculty and students can use to achieve learning goals while providing essential data can help researchers diagnose the health of an understudied critical coastal habitat.Dr. Guilherme Corte, an assistant professor of marine biology in the College of Marine Sciences and Maritime Studies at TAMUG, is a principal investigator for MarineGEO. Texas A&M University at Galveston students and faculty package samples collected on the beach to take to campus for study in the Benthic Ecology Lab. Credit: TAMUG Division of Marketing and Communications“One third of the world’s ice-free coastlines are made of sandy beaches, and they go from pole to pole,” Corte said.However, despite their abundance and place as one of the most accessible coastal ecosystems for college-level education and research, they remain critically understudied.The Tides of Opportunity Project recognized that accessibility makes sandy beaches uniquely suited for engaging professors and students, including those with limited resources.“Any students can do sandy beach research,” Corte said, encouraging instructors to help students take a break from typing questions into artificial intelligence tools and embrace opportunities to do real science. “Providing this hands-on experience is something unique.”Tides of Opportunity Project goals include:Training a cohort of professors from across the Americas in standardized sandy beach monitoring methods; Equipping participating faculty with classroom modules, field tools, and multilingual teaching materials; Expanding MarineGEO with new monitoring sites focused on the implementation of long-term sandy beach monitoring; Strengthening hands-on, college-level learning experiences; And cultivating interest, learning, and efficacy in science among college-level students.By the end of this week, workshop participants plan to have a final version of the protocol and associated course modules that we can share with professors shortly after the workshop ends to then test with their students in courses that take place between September 2026 and February 2027.The scheduleDay 1: Tuesday, Aug. 18Location: Aggie Special Events Center (ASEC), Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston 8:30 – 9 a.m. Breakfast9 – 9:30 am Welcome and brief group introductions9:30 – 10 a.m. Introduction to Tides of Opportunity Project, Design Workshop, MarineGEO, and the Connecting Coastlines to Campuses Program (presentation)10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Introduction to workshop participants and project coordination team (presentations by each participant)• Brief lunch break from 12-12:30 p.m.1 – 3 p.m. Discussion about why collaborative science matters (presentation and interactive group discussion)3 – 4:15 p.m. Introduction to sandy beaches (presentation and group discussion)Day 2: Wednesday, Aug.19Location:• Morning sessions: ASEC Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston • Afternoon sessions: Corte’s field site (location available upon request)8:30 – 9 a.m. Breakfast9 a.m. – noon Prep for fieldwork (presentation and interactive group discussion)• Finish conversation about importance of studying sandy beaches• Go through sandy beaches monitoring protocol and field sheetsNoon – 12:45 p.m. Lunch12:45 – 1:30 p.m Prep for field (including driving to the field site)1:30 – 5:30 p.m. Fieldwork & bring samples back to TAMUGDay 3: Thursday, Aug. 20Location:• Breakfast: ASEC Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston • Fieldwork: Guilherme’s field site (location available upon request)• Lab/afternoon sessions: TAMUG lab (location available upon request) and ASEC Rooms 102 B and C8:30 – 9 a.m . Breakfast9 – 11 a.m. Return to field• Shorter field trip – recovering samples left out overnight11 a.m. – noon Lab work12 – 12:45 p.m. Lunch12:45 – 2:45 p.m. Continue lab work3 – 5 p.m. Discuss with professors the feasibility of implementing protocol in their courses and where might need to make changes (discussion)Day 4: Friday, Aug. 21Location: ASEC Rooms 102 B and C, Texas A&M University at Galveston 8:30 – 9 a.m. Breakfast9 a.m. – noon Group Discussion• How to evaluate student learning and engagement• Course modules• Next steps
‘The Diplomat’ Season 4 promises more political chaos — and plenty of marital drama.
"The Diplomat," Debora Cahn’s critically acclaimed political drama starring Keri Russell, returns for its fourth season later this week.
Suspect in UPMC doctor’s stabbing death has criminal, mental health history in Florida
The man charged with fatally stabbing a UPMC doctor and critically injuring his wife during an attack in their Edgewood home had a documented history of mental health problems in Florida, where records show he attacked police and his girlfriend and ranted about vampires, aliens and a pharaoh. Elijah Hemingway,
AI For Mental Health Relies Critically On Leading-Edge Harness Engineering
AI for mental health relies on a hidden factor, namely the use of leading-edge harness engineering. This is critical. An AI Insider analysis and scoop.
Scientists race to collect the last seeds from a critically endangered tree before it goes extinct
Seeds from the last surviving wild Dendroseris neriifolia tree are now stored in Kew Gardens' Millennium Seed Bank as researchers work to find ways to reintroduce the species into the wild.
Adam Driver Brushes Off Lena Dunham Memoir Question in Cannes: ‘I’m Saving It All for My Book’
Adam Driver may be known for leading critically acclaimed films like “BlacKkKlansman” and blockbusters like “Star Wars,” but his career first gained steam on TV in Lena Dunham’s HBO series “Girls.” Th...
Trump evacuated as shooter opens fire at Washington gala
One officer was shot at close range but not critically injured, Trump said
'The system is critically stressed': San Andreas and San Jacinto faults scarily close to major earthquake, study finds
The San Andreas fault and a neighboring fault in Southern California have reached their highest levels of tectonic stress in 1,000 years, and a rupture at one fault could propagate to the other, researchers found.
Bryan Cranston shares statement on “Breaking Bad ”costar RJ Mitte’s death: ‘I’m in deep despair’
Mitte played Cranston’s son, Walter White Jr., on the critically acclaimed AMC series.
Survey Findings: Integrating Sexual and Reproductive Health into UHC Requires Leadership, Financing, and Political Will
SRHR remains critically underfunded, leaving 164M women with unmet needs and driving preventable maternal deaths. Global survey findings show political commitment is the key driver of financing and integration into UHC. While fiscal constraints persist, leadership determines whether resources are prioritized, enabling equitable access and strengthening health systems.
Deadly building explosion reported in Sand Springs
One person was killed and another was critically injured after an early morning explosion damaged multiple buildings in Sand Springs.
How Geospatial Science is Reshaping Cancer Epidemiology: Three Perspectives from the Front Lines
The transformational use of geospatial technologies can identify disease risk and outcomes and, more critically, help mitigate cancer mortality.
Man critically wounded in shooting at Humboldt Park business
The 31-year-old man was approached by someone he did not know and shot in the chest at 7:20 p.m. Friday, police said.
Duran: Political Corruption, Personal Gain, Negligence, and Public Deception
It’s evident that the supervisors don’t want to recognize and/or prioritize saving lives of the infants, children, disabled, veterans, seniors, and critically ill who are trying to survive living on the streets in Orange County…
Critically endangered hare spotted in surprising location for the first time in 40 years — but it was already dead
Scientists in China have announced the first confirmed sighting of the critically endangered Hainan hare in part of its native range in four decades, after spotting its completely flattened carcass on a roadside.
Yanic Truesdale Signs With Mainstay Entertainment
EXCLUSIVE: Canadian actor Yanic Truesdale has signed with Mainstay Entertainment for management. Best known for his role in the critically acclaimed series Gilmore Girls from Amy Sherman-Palladino, Tr...
Two hantavirus cases confirmed, five more suspected on stranded cruise ship
Among the seven cases, three people have died, one is critically ill and three have mild symptoms, the WHO says.
2 police officers wounded, 1 critically, in shooting at Chicago hospital, officials say
Two police officers were shot at a hospital in Chicago and one was in critical condition as the medical facility went on lockdown, local officials said.
The Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner closed Small Business Bank in Lenexa on Friday
The Small Business Bank in Lenexa was closed Friday by the Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner after "ongoing operating losses resulted in the bank’s capital becoming critically undercapitalized under federal and state law."
Best TV shows of fall 2026: ‘Slow Horses,’ ‘Monster,’ ‘VisionQuest,’ more
A reimagining of a Stephen King classic. A trio of best friends trying to save the world. A return of a critically acclaimed crime drama. A bevy of new seasons
‘Deadloch’ Season 2: Trailer, release date, cast, and more
The critically acclaimed Australian crime comedy returns as detectives Dulcie Collins and Eddie Redcliffe head to a new town.
New Science Plan Spurs DWR Efforts for Longfin Smelt
Tucked within the UC Davis campus, a quiet but critically important effort is helping preserve the Longfin Smelt, a vulnerable fish species native to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Scientists with DWR and UC Davis are collaborating to better understand and conserve this declining species through immediate conservation actions and long-term research.
The biggest barrier to teen mental health isn’t treatment.
Treatment is critically important, but experience has taught us that another challenge often comes first: ensuring young people are identified, supported and connected to care before a situation becomes a crisis.
1 fatally shot, another critically wounded outside Santa Clarita Sports Complex
One man was killed, and another was left critically wounded from a shooting just outside of the Santa Clarita Sports Complex late Saturday night, authorities said. Deputies with the Los Angeles Cou…
Former ESPN host hypocritically calls network a 'political lobbying firm' after Ted Cruz appearance
Jemele Hill slammed ESPN for hosting Senator Ted Cruz on "College GameDay," but her own history of political commentary on the network reveals blatant hypocricy.
New Device at UToledo Health Helping Critically Ill Patients Get Off Ventilators Faster
The FDA-approved LungPacer AeroPace® System uses targeted neurostimulation to strengthen the diaphragm of ventilated ICU patients, helping them breathe on their own faster and reducing the risk of serious complications.
What Box Office Bomb Crushed Obsession on Streaming?
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get into this week’s issue, let me ask you for some suggestions. At the risk of coining too many names for too many things (hence my dictionary of terms...), I need a name for straight-to-streaming films that are too expensive to justify a straight-to-streaming release, but not big enough to justify a theatrical release. Like some of the films I highlighted in last week’s tally of the biggest film flops of 2026 so far: Hulu’s Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, Pizza Movie or Never Change! They don’t feel like “made for TV movies” (think Hallmark and Lifetime movies, cheap Netflix romcoms, or Disney Channel Original movies, for example) but they don’t feel big enough for the big screen. They’re not “cinematic” enough, so to speak. As I wrote... “I still need a name for this middle zone of film that’s too expensive to go straight-to-streaming but too small to justify a theatrical release (with all the PR, distribution, marketing and whatnot costs that go along with it), the Goldilocks zone of streaming film death.” Friend of the newsletter Brandon Katz has suggested the “Bermuda Budget Triangle”, “The Platform Gap” and “The Distribution Deadzone”. I love that first one. I’d offer up the much wordier “The Streaming Budget Dead Zone” or “the Goldilocks Zone of streaming film death” but that last one isn’t accurate since, unlike Goldilocks’ porridge, these films are the opposite of “just right”. That’s the problem! Anyway, if you have any suggestions, let me know! On to today’s Streaming Ratings Report. As you can tell by today’s headline, things are going to be spicy! I’m looking at a box office bomb that did really, really well on streaming, somewhat challenging a few different narratives. And another Netflix series declined in its second season. All that, plus Wicked: For Good switching streamers, The Hawk continuing its strong run, _The Bear’_s finale season finally dropping off the charts, the WNBA posting a big viewership number, “shallow libraries”, a sitcom spinoff failing to launch, more big budget IP flopping on Paramount+, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of July 20th to July 26th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - The Latest Theatrical Success Story on Streaming In the latest edition of “Flops, Bombs and Misses of the First Half of 2026”, I made a crucial change: I started including theatrical films with the streaming misses. The streamers have collectively—including Netflix, but not to as big of an extent—stopped making a lot of straight-to-streaming films, and the ones they do make aren’t as expensive as in the heyday of the streaming bubble. After the following two films bombed in theaters, you’d guess that they’ll be included in my next collection of flops, bombs and misses six months from now: Masters of the Universe on Prime Video (only $64 million domestic box office) Mortal Kombat II on HBO Max ($79 million domestic) But you’d be wrong! Masters of the Universe, a reboot of the He-Man franchise, a toy from the 1980s, came to streaming on 22-July and did great! This long-gestating project—it’s been at every studio for years, and came close to getting a greenlight at Netflix—then finally came to theaters in June, and showed up on streaming less than two months later. (I don’t love this short theatrical window.) It surprisingly grabbed nearly 20 million hours on its debut: That means, wait for it, Masters of the Universe is currently the eighth biggest film on streaming through two weeks. My rough bar for “hit” is shows or films in the top 15%. Ergo…Masters of the Universe is a legit, streaming hit! (One quick caveat: if it falls out of the top ten next week, it will move to 13th overall, just on the edge of the top 15.) Of course, that’s the data for just 2026. Here’s how it stacks up to Prime Video’s theatrical films: That drop into its second week is typical for Amazon films, but also a worrying sign. I have a feeling interest in this film is front-loaded and we’ll see it drop off after this. As for Mortal Kombat II, in this case, the viewership numbers roughly match the theatrical outing, with only 4.1 million hours in its first week. Here’s how it stacks up to other HBO Max films: The best defense of this number is that, as a relatively violent rated-R film, Mortal Kombat II never had a good chance at breaking out. So now it’s time for a little big of “Entertainment Nuance Guy”: First, yeah, my headline is obviously facetious, since Masters of the Universe besting Obsession says more about horror as a genre than it does that film. Second, I read and listened to quite a few “nobody wanted this IP” takes about Masters of the Universe, and that’s not really true. At least enough people wanted it to power a 20 million+ hour debut! Third, both this film and Mortal Kombat II were considered “average” by viewers, but not great films, with a 6.4 and 6.3 respectively on IMDb. That’s just shy of the level needed to be a word-of-mouth hit. Fourth, in the olden days, strong word of mouth could transform a box office miss into a cable/DVD hit, like Austin Powers or The Shawshank Redemption. We haven’t seen a lot of examples of that on streaming, though. And there are far fewer ways to monetize the post-theatrical life of a film these days. Fifth, Prime Video has shown an ability to push their own titles well, likely because they control the Amazon Fire TV ecosystem. Add it all up, and here’s my nuanced take on Masters of the Universe: it was a box office bomb, but, shockingly, a streaming hit. Unfortunately, while being a theatrical hit saves your film financially, being a streaming hit does not. Both Masters of the Universe and Mortal Kombat II had big budgets and needed to make more money in theaters to justify them. So…Straight-to-Streaming or Theaters? We’ve hit a really fun point in the streaming calendar, since the films that came out in theaters in April, May, and June are now arriving on streaming. So the “Do theatrical releases help streaming performances?” question is gonna get a fresh round of updates nearly every week. No single week will answer the question, but we may get some insights. For example, so far in 2026, it looks like theatrical films are lasting longer on the weekly Nielsen film charts. Here’s a list of films that have made the charts in their fourth or fifth week of release, separated by “for kids” and “general entertainment”: It certainly seems like theatrical films are lasting just a pinch longer on the charts, with Project Hail Mary being the current five-week champion. One Battle After Another did well for HBO Max too, and even The Sheep Detectives made it four weeks. The only exception to this trend? Obsession, which only lasted two weeks on the charts. You might tempted to overreact to this news. Don’t. Obsession is a huge horror hit, but horror just doesn’t do as well on streaming. By the way, here’s the Google Trends for various theatrical and stremaing films: Plus, when it comes to Netflix in four months, Obsession may have another big boost. Quick Notes on Film Note that when I write, “the streamers have pulled back on straight-to-streaming films” that doesn’t mean “abandoned” because Netflix is gonna Netflix. On 24-July, they released 72 Hours, a Kevin Hart comedy. Along with Eddie Murphy, Mark Wahlberg, John Cena and Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart is a streaming film star now. Did this latest one work? Not really. It only garnered two weeks of 13.2 and 12.2 million hours on its debut, well below the 20-million-hour hit threshold. It also was poorly received critically—a 44 on Metacritic—and by customers—a 5.4 on IMDb on 21K IMDb reviews. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The latest Netflix true crime doc to pop on the charts… How The Bear finished its run… Netflix’s latest Western to return to streaming… What Paramount+ animated film flopped… And what sitcom also missed… All the flops, bombs and misses… And a whole lot more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! I’m behind by a week, so we’ve got two issues coming your way this week, including one in a couple of days or so, then we’ll be all caught up**.** Next issue, inspired by The Super Mario Galaxy Movie coming to Peacock, I’m going to take a look at the workhouse of streaming TV: kids films. Plus The Devil Wears Prada 2 continues theatrical films’ big run on streaming. All that, plus another surprise hit on Hulu, Lioness on CBS, and a whole lot more. Long term, LeBron James is filming his own “Last Dance”-style docu-series, surprising no one. But as I’ve been writing about a lot this summer, this genre is really overrated, so whoever ends up buying it (reportedly ESPN) really shouldn’t pay too much for it.
I On Politics
TYPE O BLOOD URGENTLY NEEDED: New York Blood Center (NYBC) and New Jersey Blood Services (NJBS) are urgently calling on New Yorkers and New Jerseyans with O-positive and O-negative blood to donate as soon as possible as the region’s supply of Type O blood has fallen to critically low levels. After an especially challenging
Situation Report No.11: Earthquakes in Venezuela 2026 (M7.2 and M7.5)
Nearly three months after the 24 June 2026 earthquakes in Venezuela, the response has moved into early recovery while sustaining essential emergency operations. Efforts now center on maintaining continuity of care across mental health, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and neonatal care, NCDs, and rehabilitation, alongside restoring affected facilities, supporting transitional camps, and strengthening Health Cluster coordination as Emergency Medical Teams and international partners withdraw. Health system recovery is advancing, with 16 ASICs and 356 health facilities assessed (61% operational) and rehabilitation progressing under CERF, CFE and US funding, while fluctuating electricity, medication refrigeration and emergency-generator gaps continue to challenge the safe continuity of essential health services. Public health surveillance and prevention remain active, with 47,145 cumulative vaccine doses administered and 556 health professionals trained, while intensified surveillance in La Guaira and Miranda and mounting environmental risks from tropical rains and heatwaves continue to require sustained vector-control and water/sanitation action. Contraception remains the most consistent unmet need across assessed shelters, particularly among adolescents and young women, while mental health needs continue to rise across the transitional camps amid limited supplies and specialized personnel. PAHO/WHO continues to support the response with critically needed medical supplies and medicines, having shipped 46.6 metric tons to Venezuela to date, benefiting 72 actors and reaching 117,714 people with treatment through PAHO and partner donations, while sustained technical and logistical support to the Ministry of Popular Power for Health (MPPS) has strengthened the national supply chain and ensured the continuity of health services through the coordination, reception, and mobilization of international donations of essential medical products.
Colorado’s energy policies are becoming a national security risk
By William L. Shelton The Colorado Public Utilities Commission is on the verge of making decisions that could have immediate, real-world consequences for every resident in the state, and for the security of our nation. These decisions could restrict energy companies’ ability to add critically needed capacity to our electric grid. This issue is not […]
Health Watch: Scientists say animal therapy helps critically ill patients, prompting new legislation
Rediscovered after 100 years: scientists reveal status of the critically endangered Osmanthus pubipedicellatus
Integrative morphological and molecular evidence confirms the rediscovery of a long-lost Osmanthus species, revealing its declining population and urgent conservation needs.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
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Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. RALPH BALSON. 1890—1964. Oil and enamel, signed. Source: Gavekal This going to hurt - the two 7s in the US: diesel and mortgage rates Source: Gavekal In the US housing market, costs are soaring and the role of corporate, private equity-backed buyers is high on the mid-term election agenda. HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $60. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe It is striking how, since 2020, big banks have dropped out of the political spotlight in the US. For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Rates of the lung disease pneumoconiosis among working US coal miners have risen to levels not seen in nearly 40 years Source: Bloomberg Chinese Clean Technology Exports For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Ralph Balson (1939) Portrait of Grace Crowley Cole, G. O. & Haseman, S. M., (2023) “‘The Substance of Paint’: Class and Materiality in the Work of Ralph Balson”, Open Library of Humanities 9(2). Ralph Balson (1890–1964) was an English plumber and house painter who emigrated to Australia in 1913 and subsequently became a key member of Sydney’s artistic avant-garde. He is credited with having the first solo exhibition of purely abstract painting in Australia in 1941. Despite his role in developing Australian non-objective painting, Balson remained principally a house painter, working on his art practice at weekends. In 1955 he retired on a state pension and became a full-time artist. Balson’s artistic education and methods were critically shaped by his working-class background. He did not travel abroad until 1960 and was an avid auto-didact. His materials, palette, techniques and compositional strategies were likewise informed by his trade. Balson’s profession as a painter-decorator made him conspicuous within the predominantly middle-class Sydney art scene, though his painting partner Grace Crowley considered it an advantage in their pursuit of constructive painting. This paper explores the impact of Balson’s trade on his trajectory towards pure abstraction. While his art was at odds with the predominantly figurative mode of class-conscious art in Australian Modernism, we argue that it is embedded in the experience of class through its creative adaptation of labour into aesthetics. Source: OLH Svetlana Alexievich, The Art of Oral History No. 1 Paris Review Issue 257, Fall 2026 Interviewed by Elena Kostyuchenko INTERVIEWER How were you able to go to Chernobyl? Did you need special papers? ALEXIEVICH It was a time of chaos. They let me right into the zone. … More than anything, there was confusion. Adamovich [Ales Adamovich, the Soviet Belarusian writer], I remember, persuaded Gorbachev to send in the scientists, who showed up without even bringing their shaving kits. They were told that there had been an explosion at a nuclear power plant, but for some reason they thought that they’d be there for only a day or two. The first time I went was several months later, and people kept telling me about things they didn’t understand—how the fishermen couldn’t find worms, because they’d burrowed deep into the earth, how the milk wouldn’t curdle at the cheese factories. The honeybees wouldn’t come out of their hives. The evacuations started, I think, in the first month. The old women hid, they wouldn’t leave. I mentioned radiation to one of them and she said, “I’ve seen that radiation, all right! It’s yellow with green in it. I saw puddles of it in my garden, and I told the other women, and we ran and looked, and she had it in her garden, and the other one, too!” God, it was wild, the way the mind made sense of it. There was a story going around about Gorbachev telling the scientists to show him the radiation. “We can’t, it’s invisible.” “But I want to see it!” I also ran into the soldiers who’d been flown in on helicopters from Afghanistan. I asked them, “What are you doing here with your machine guns?” They said, “We’re collecting the radiation, that’s what.” So you had some of them running around with their guns, others out in the village washing off firewood or burying soil in the soil. These were the kinds of things that exploded our worldview. They made you realize that culture was just a chest filled with old manuscripts. There were no books in there that could help me. Our philosophers turned out to be useless when faced with the unprecedented. Derrida, Baudrillard—philosophy fell silent. What was happening? How would we live with it? That’s when I decided it simply needed to be witnessed. Which is what I did. INTERVIEWER I wanted to ask about how you talk to people. … ALEXIEVICH Yes, we sit and we talk—about what interests me and about life in general. About love, about everything in the world. That way, what comes out is three-dimensional. If you cut straight to the part you need, which is what journalists do, it won’t be interesting, and it won’t be the truth, either. Not the whole truth. INTERVIEWER Do people always open up when you ask questions, or can questions get in the way? ALEXIEVICH You have to ask questions, of course. Your job is to scour away the banality and return people to their true selves, to make them face what they rarely tap into. With every new person, you have to find a new way to do it. When you ask an interesting question or you share what happened to you, you help people really think about what they’re saying and not just repeat whatever they’ve picked up from the newspaper. But not everybody is capable of it, not everyone wants to put themselves through that. Either the chemistry starts to kick in or it doesn’t. A person might be wonderful, but you can tell that the conversation just isn’t going to happen. You can try to push it, but it will be a product of your own intellect, rather than of that mysterious connection. Life doesn’t come from the mind. Some people I can call two years after our last conversation, and they’ll say, “Oh, Svetochka! I think of you all the time,” and we’ll start talking again. With others, that won’t happen. That doesn’t mean they’re not extraordinary people, just that you can’t connect with them. They might have some insight, but you don’t have the right antenna to pick up their signal. Source: The Paris Review Colorized Franco-Prussian war … the ruins of Strasbourg with a French photographer and his mobile dark room. Ralph Balson (1961) Matter Painting If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
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Why politicians are punchlines at the Edinburgh Fringe
There was a time when satire had an easier gig. Politicians said something ridiculous, comedians made fun of them, audiences laughed, and everyone went home. Subscribe Now the joke is often the headline. In a world where the unbelievable regularly makes the news, where politics can veer into parody before the comedians have had time to write the punchline, you might reasonably wonder: is satire running out of material? Not in Edinburgh. At the Fringe, I can confirm satire has a pulse, even in a relentless and rapid news cycle. Politicians as punchlines Take NewsRevue, the world’s longest-running live sketch show, where politicians are turned into punchlines at industrial speed. Its latest target? Andy Burnham - or, more accurately, his doppelganger, pictured below in the middle. The joke, he tells us, is that there have been so many politicians coming and going that even satire risks suffering from political fatigue. But perhaps that revolving door is precisely why comedy matters. When the news cycle moves faster than our ability to process it, comedians can hold up a mirror - and make us think twice. Small talk Take Ayoade Bamgboye, the Saturday Night Live UK star who won the Best Newcomer prize at last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Her Fringe debut was critically acclaimed; this year she is turning her attention to one of Britain’s most baffling social rituals: small talk. Share It’s a reminder that satire doesn’t always need a politician in its sights. Sometimes the target is simply us civilians - the strange little rules and rituals we have collectively agreed to pretend are normal. Politics and Palestinian identity For British-Palestinian comedian Sami Abu Wardeh, pictured below, comedy has a more urgent job. His new show, Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You, asks who gets to hate, and whether anger belongs to everyone, not just the far right. His comedy confronts politics and Palestinian identity while refusing to surrender the simple business of making people laugh. Shakespeare meets climate crisis And then there is HAM: an “eco-hijacking” of Hamlet, which its creators describe as “a sordid wrestle between a vegan and a sausage-lover”. Shakespeare meets the climate crisis. Meat meets moral panic. The end result? You’ll leave promising to become vegan and swiftly bulk buying Linda McCartney sausages. HAM was created by theatre company Hotter Project, aka Ell Potter and Mary Higgins, pictured below. They say comedy helped them avoid the preachiness sometimes associated with climate activism - using Shakespeare as a vessel for uncomfortable questions about the planet, politics and the way we live. Perhaps that is satire’s secret weapon. It doesn’t necessarily make the world less absurd. It makes the absurdity crystal clear. And at a moment when reality increasingly feels like it has been written by a sketch writer, the Fringe is proving there is still plenty to laugh and cry at. Satire isn’t dead. It’s alive, subletting and having the time of its life at the Fringe. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment
High School Students Advance from State Science and Engineering Fair to International Competition
Charleston, W.Va. - The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) is pleased to announce that Pavan Subramani from Morgantown High School (Monongalia County), Iqraa Zaman from George Washington High School (Kanawha County) and the team of Jaxon Milam and Joseph Nodurft from the Linsly School (Ohio County) have advanced from the 72nd annual West Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair (WVSSEF) to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). The state-level fair serves as the qualifier for the ISEF, and these four students will represent the Mountain State in Phoenix in May.To compete in the WVSSEF, students in Grades 3-12 had to win their local, county and regional science and engineering fairs. Today’s competition resulted in 48 first place winners, 53 second place winners and 46 third place winners. For the full detailed list, view the 2026 WVSSEF Official Results.The WVSSEF challenges students to think critically about the world around them, encouraging them to find answers to unsolved questions and address problems by introducing proactive solutions. Students are also provided the opportunity to present their projects to judges—industry professionals and university professors—to discuss the research findings, scientific methodologies and hypotheses involved in their work.“The West Virginia Science and Engineering Fair is a highlight of every school year, as it brings some of the Mountain State's most accomplished students together as a showcase of the immense talent and potential they possess," said State Superintendent of Schools Michele L. Blatt. "These young scholars show time and time again that the future economy of West Virginia is bright. The attention to detail in every project and the passion and joy expressed by our students are truly inspiring."The WVSSEF featured 273 aspiring scientists, chemists and engineers who presented 209 projects featuring material science, animal science, plant science, physics, astronomy, engineering and more.View event photos.
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