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Andy Burnham and the rise of ‘aura farming’ in politics

Is “aura farming” the new political superpower? There are some days in TV news when you find yourself standing in the middle of a farm, surrounded by baby goats, trying to explain internet slang. Subscribe This was one of those days. There I was, in wellies, trying to unpack aura farming - a Gen Z term for carefully cultivating your image online so that you look effortlessly cool, authentic and charismatic. The trick, apparently, is that it can’t look like you’re trying too hard. Which, I’ll admit, felt slightly ironic as we filmed an entire report on a farm purely because the word farming is in the title. ‘Shaped by algorithms’ Whether you like it or not, politics increasingly feels like it’s being shaped by algorithms as much as manifestos. Take Andy Burnham. Since arriving at Number 10, he’s been impossible to miss online. One minute he’s out for a casual jog with Mo Farah. Next he’s announcing policy alongside TikTok high priestess Bus Aunty. His social media paints a very deliberate picture: less polished Westminster operator, more bloke from the North who just happens to be running the country. It’s not accidental. Burnham’s “King of the North”, New Order-loving persona has become part of a carefully constructed political brand. Authenticity is now something politicians work incredibly hard to make look effortless. But Burnham isn’t inventing this playbook. Like so many of us doomscrolling on an evening, he’s been influenced online. The digital strategy of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, pictured above right, has become a case study in viral political communication, and some of the people behind that campaign have recently been advising the Labour Party in Britain. Their message is simple: if you want to reach younger voters, you need to show up where they already spend their time. Embracing content creators And increasingly, that doesn’t mean traditional news interviews (awkward). It means speaking to content creators like Max from The Career Ladder, whose channels reach around 20 million followers worldwide. His interview with Burnham, pictured below, was posted almost immediately after he became Prime Minister. What struck me wasn’t just the audience size, but something Max told me afterwards: many people in the comments said they’d discovered Britain had a new Prime Minister through his interview. Think about that for a moment. Not through rolling news. Not through newspapers. Through a creator they were already following while scrolling. Share That’s a profound shift in how political information reaches people, one that’s been gathering momentum for some time. It also explains why politicians are embracing content creators and spending millions on digital marketing. Of course, this isn’t unique to one party. ‘Personality before policy’ In many ways, the right were quicker off the mark in building their aura online. Donald Trump built much of his political identity on social media. Nigel Farage remains one of Britain’s strongest political performers on TikTok. Politicians across the spectrum now understand that personality often reaches people before policy does. During a six-week UK general election campaign alone, overall digital ad spending routinely tops £11m. Share Channel 4 News Former Number 10 social media adviser Andrew Wong put it well when he told me that “vibes” can help someone get noticed, but they only work if they’re rooted in a genuine personality. Force it, and audiences spot it instantly. The bigger question is whether internet charisma can backfire on you - especially when you’re Prime Minister. Because behind Burnham’s carefully curated videos is a veteran politician with decades of Westminster experience. The spontaneity is produced. While the authenticity may be genuine, it’s managed. That’s not necessarily a criticism. It’s simply the reality of modern political communication. Aura farming alone is not enough to harvest change. But in the age of algorithms, winning attention may be the first battle. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment

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Jul 25 • 4:01 AM EDT • Politics • channel4news.substack.com
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Nevada regulators approve key steps in MGM, Caesars take-private deals

Two Nevada resort companies that dominate the Strip came a step closer to converting from publicly traded to privately held after actions Thursday before the Nevada Gaming Commission. In separate

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Jul 24 • 9:10 PM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com
Science Central seeks $150K to bring back iconic high-rail bike

Science Central is working to bring back one of its most recognized attractions — the high-rail bike — with a fundraising campaign aimed at installing a new, updated version of the ride.

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Jul 24 • 5:39 PM EDT • Science • 21alivenews.com
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Kalshi demands Netflix take down trailer for ‘misleading’ prediction market documentary

The prediction market Kalshi threatened legal action against Netflix on Friday, claiming a trailer for its upcoming documentary about the industry contains defamatory and “fabricated” content, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

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Jul 24 • 5:11 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Patriots All-Pro playmaker's strong reaction to DeAndre Hopkins' visit

Cornerback Marcus Jones shared his thoughts on DeAndre Hopkins potentially coaching for the Patriots.

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Jul 24 • 3:12 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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LeBron James signs with 76ers: Instant reaction and analysis
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Jul 24 • 2:08 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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6-year-old in China dies after experimental treatment, investigation finds, raising questions about the country's gene therapy regulations

A young girl in China died after being given an experimental gene therapy intended to treat a neurodevelopmental syndrome, an investigation by Science and Retraction Watch revealed.

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Jul 24 • 2:02 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com
NBA world reacts to LeBron James’ stunning 76ers decision

It was worth the wait, just to see the reactions to LeBron choosing Philly.

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Jul 24 • 11:53 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Siri Settlement Approved: Apple to Pay Owners of Some iPhone Models

In May, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle a U.S. class action lawsuit over Siri AI's delayed launch, and eligible iPhone users could receive up to a $95 payout. Apple's settlement has now received preliminary approval from a judge, according to a July 17 court document. However, there is no settlement website yet, and it may take months before eligible customers can begin submitting claims.

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Jul 24 • 11:10 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
ACC shares updated recommendations for managing HFpEF

A team of specialists detailed new data and recent breakthroughs in the diagnosis, management and treatment of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

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Jul 24 • 10:21 AM EDT • Business • cardiovascularbusiness.com
Saquon Barkley reflects on golf outing with Trump, weighs in on politics and football

Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley reflects on his past interactions with President Donald Trump and the situation surrounding Jaxson Dart.

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Jul 24 • 9:09 AM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
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To negotiate with Iran, understand it first

Western countries assume Iran’s actions are aimed at them. But something else is going on.

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Jul 24 • 7:15 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com
Nancy Armour's disastrous Caitlin Clark article exemplifies why sportswriting and sports media is failing

A USA Today columnist linked Caitlin Clark's interactions with WNBA officials to Emmett Till, presenting another example of modern sports media's political bias.

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Jul 24 • 6:49 AM EDT • Sports • foxnews.com
49ers’ Nick Bosa Appears to Celebrate Ryan Clark’s ESPN Firing

San Francisco 49ers star pass rusher Nick Bosa hadn’t posted on X in four years — until Thursday evening.Bosa returned to the platform with a subtle reaction to ESPN’s decision to part ways with former NFL defensive back and longtime analyst Ryan Clark earlier this week during a round of layoffs.Nick Bosa’s ReactionBosa reposted The […] The post 49ers’ Nick Bosa Appears to Celebrate Ryan Clark’s ESPN Firing appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 24 • 12:42 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Dev Patel's Rise from Drama to Action Hero
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Jul 23 • 10:56 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Jamall Emmers Books Fight for UFC Sacramento

Jamall Emmers is back in action. The featherweight fighter returns on August 22 in Sacramento, California. He takes on knockout artist Lerryan Douglas in a 3-round fight in the featherweight division. Multiple sources have confirmed the fight to Heavy.com. Both fighters are currently on a winning streak. Emmers won his last two fights while Douglas […] The post Jamall Emmers Books Fight for UFC Sacramento appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 23 • 10:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Lights, Camera, Confidence: Exploring the Representation of Cutaneous Conditions in the Entertainment Industry and Its Impact on Children's Self-esteem

By Richard Moraga, BS, and Peter A. Lio, MD Stigmatization Of Skin Conditions In The Entertainment Industry Representation And Societal Impact of Specific Skin Conditions Missed Opportunities Longitudinal Psychological and Social Effects of Entertainment Influence Changing Perceptions of Skin in Recent Years The Role of Dermatology Call to Action The way that physical appearance […]

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Jul 23 • 7:06 PM EDT • Entertainment • thedermdigest.com
Trump finalizes new tariffs on dozens of countries

"Today's action is the most sweeping international labor rights action the United States has ever taken," an administration official said.

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Jul 23 • 5:52 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
ICYMI Cruz in USA Today: Congress must fix college sports before it's too late  - U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) published an op-ed in USA Today emphasizing how the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill introduced with Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), is the best legislative solution to stabilize college athletics for future generations. In the op-ed, Chairman Cruz argues that without congressional action, college athletics could be reduced to a super league dominated by the wealthiest […]

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Jul 23 • 5:10 PM EDT • Sports • commerce.senate.gov
Smithsonian pushed ‘revolting’ social action training after ‘whiteness’ chart apology: expert

Smithsonian staff co-authored a DEI training toolkit that calls objectivity part of white supremacy, years after the museum apologized for a similar chart.

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Jul 23 • 5:09 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
eBay Sports Card Sales Cross $1 Billion in a First Half for the First Time: Inside the $1.36 Billion H1 2026 Numbers

At Yahoo Finance, you get free stock quotes, up-to-date news, portfolio management resources, international market data, social interaction and mortgage rates that help you manage your financial life.

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Jul 23 • 4:54 PM EDT • Sports • finance.yahoo.com
Maine Democrats call on Bennett to denounce GOP funds

Specifically, Democrats say a political action committee called Maine Wins Together, which is supporting Bennett, recently received $100,000 from donors who have also given to former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who is now running for the 2nd Congressional District.

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Jul 23 • 2:40 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
Vance Boelter sentenced to life in prison as victims of his political attack recount their anguish

The physical and mental anguish created by Vance Boelter’s actions were laid bare as his victims confronted him before he was given two consecutive life sentences in federal prison.

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Jul 23 • 1:20 PM EDT • Politics • startribune.com
Ranking Members Markey, Velázquez Push to Roll Back Trump Administration’s Discriminatory SBA Lending Policy that Blocks Immigrant Entrepreneurs from Pursuing the American Dream

Bicameral resolution would rescind Trump administration policy banning green card holders from accessing SBA loans Resolution Text (PDF) | One-Pager (PDF) (Washington, July 23) – Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY-7) today introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to rescind the Trump administration’s policy that bans green card holders from accessing essential Small Business Administration (SBA) loans to start and grow their businesses and invest in Main Streets nationwide. Trump’s SBA restrictions buck decades of precedent, attacking immigrant small business owners who are lawfully in the U.S. with no justification. The Trump administration’s green card holder ban is the most recent escalation of SBA’s draconian citizenship restrictions that are killing jobs and putting the American Dream further out of reach for entrepreneurs. In Fiscal Year 2025, the SBA made an estimated $5.7 billion in loans to green card holders, which supported more than 80,000 American jobs. Ranking Member Markey’s introduction of the CRA resolution follows his introduction of the Investing in the American Dream Act alongside Ranking Member Velázquez earlier this year. The Investing in the American Dream Act would roll back the SBA’s draconian lending restrictions and restore previous SBA lending policies for immigrant entrepreneurs lawfully in the U.S., including green card holders, refugees, and asylees. More than 100 organizations have called for the passage of the legislation and over 60 Massachusetts state legislators have raised concerns about the impact of the citizenship restrictions in their local communities. “Once again, Donald Trump is shutting hardworking immigrants out of the American Dream with his discriminatory and dangerous policies, fear tactics, and violent rhetoric. The anti-small business lending requirements implemented by Trump’s SBA won’t Make America Great Again—they are Making America Hate Again,” said Ranking Member Markey. “I am fighting every single day to roll back Trump’s brazen attempt to steal the American Dream from entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country who enrich our communities, strengthen our Main Streets, and create jobs in the United States.” “Starting and owning your own business is one of the pillars of the American Dream. Under the Trump Administration, the SBA has sought to deny immigrant small business owners and entrepreneurs that dream by preventing them from accessing the capital they need to grow and scale their businesses. Not only is this policy cruel, but it is also self-defeating and holds our country back economically. As Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, I will do everything in my power to reverse this terrible policy,” said Ranking Member Velázquez. Massachusetts state legislators applauded Ranking Member Markey’s actions and emphasized the critical contributions of green card holders to Bay State communities and the Commonwealth’s economy. "Green card holders are our neighbors, workers, entrepreneurs, and taxpayers,” said Massachusetts State Senator Adam Gómez (D-Springfield), Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses. “They open restaurants, launch small businesses, create jobs, and contribute every day to the economic strength of Massachusetts. Denying lawful permanent residents access to SBA loan programs doesn't make our economy stronger—it makes it harder for small businesses to succeed. I support this resolution because opportunity should never be limited by unnecessary barriers that prevent hardworking people from investing in their communities and pursuing the American dream." “Senator Markey’s CRA Resolution provides a valuable moment for our federal leaders to show their commitment to small businesses and the American Dream,” said Massachusetts State Representative Andy X. Vargas (D-Haverhill), House Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses. “The SBA’s recent policy restricting lawful residents from accessing the popular 7(a) and 504 programs has shut out some of the most entrepreneurial and hard-working members of our community from much-need capital. In Massachusetts, these programs have invested millions of dollars into small businesses owned by green card holders, supporting thousands of jobs. This should not be a partisan issue. People who worked hard, have legal status, and contribute so much to their communities via employment and economic impact don’t deserve to be in the crosshairs for political purposes. The Senator’s resolution is a step forward in restoring access to the American Dream that small business owners across the country deserve.” Several small business advocates and stakeholders voiced their support for Ranking Member Markey’s efforts to roll back Trump SBA’s discriminatory lending rules. “Immigrant-owned businesses are the foundation of the American economy. They power our neighborhoods, provide essential services, and employ our loved ones. Yet, systemic hurdles like the Small Business Administration’s citizenship restrictions unfairly block their path to prosperity," said Elizabeth Sweet, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. "We applaud Senator Markey’s continued leadership and look forward to a future where immigrant entrepreneurs can share their ingenuity without arbitrary restrictions that hold us all back.” “Independent restaurants have always been built by people willing to work hard, take risks, and invest in their communities. When lawfully authorized entrepreneurs lose access to the financing they need to start or grow a business, we all lose. These are the businesses creating jobs, filling storefronts, and strengthening our neighborhoods. Access to capital should help good businesses succeed, and that’s exactly what restoring these SBA loan programs would do,” said Jen Ziskin, Executive Director of Massachusetts Restaurants United. “At the Latino Economic Development Corporation, we see firsthand that access to capital transforms lives, creates jobs, and strengthens neighborhoods. Many of the entrepreneurs we serve are lawful permanent residents who have invested their savings, opened businesses, and employ local residents. Restricting access to SBA financing doesn’t just impact business owners, it limits economic opportunity for entire communities. Main Street succeeds when every qualified entrepreneur has a fair chance to grow,” said Andrew Melendez, CEO and Founder of the Latino Economic Development Corporation. "Immigrants and immigrant-owned businesses are the heart and soul of small business communities in cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth, and across America. Limiting access to these SBA loans not only sends the wrong message about immigration, it will have significant negative economic impact on our small business ecosystem,” said Keith Mahoney, Vice President of Public Affairs at the Boston Foundation. “The SBA’s recent policy changes that prevent Legal Permanent Residents, and other non-citizens from participating in any of the SBA’s valuable programs are changes that are unwelcome, immoral, and antithetical to our purpose, our mission, and our vision for Massachusetts communities and businesses. Immigrant entrepreneurs and others have expressed concern that Common Capital will ‘report them to ICE,’ so loan demand has decreased. There is no valid reason for excluding Legal Permanent Residents and other noncitizens who are lawfully present in the U.S. from accessing the SBA’s programs. Immigrant entrepreneurs start businesses, they create jobs, they support their families and their communities. Our government should be in the business of encouraging their full participation in our economy,” said Raymond Lanza-Weil, President of Common Capital. "ECCHO-Latino now represents over 400 educators and 300 microbusinesses across Massachusetts, where immigrants make up 60% of the childcare workforce. When a green card holder is ready to grow her business—from expanding her home child care to opening a center—she shouldn't be turned away by local banks simply because of federal citizenship rules. Blocking access to SBA loans kills opportunity and deepens our state's childcare crisis. ECCHO-Latino strongly supports Senator Markey and Representative Velázquez in passing this resolution to put Main Street first," said Harold Antonio Blanco, Co-Founder & Executive Director of ECCHO-Latino Inc. "This is exactly how political ideology ruins an economy. Washington has taken lawful, tax-paying entrepreneurs who live in our communities, invest in America, and hire American workers, and declared their businesses ineligible for critical financing simply because a green card holder owns even a fraction of the company. Using policies ostensibly aimed at illegal immigration to punish lawful permanent residents is nothing short of ideological overreach and economic self-sabotage. The SBA exists to help viable small businesses grow, rather than imposing nativist tests that ignore an entrepreneur’s credit history, business plan, or ability to create jobs. When the federal government closes the door on qualified entrepreneurs, they’re also closing the door on American entrepreneurship and on American workers, while handing future companies, jobs, innovation, and investment to our competitors. America should be competing to attract people who want to invest and build here, not creating arbitrary barriers that drive their talent and capital elsewhere,” said Javier Palomarez, President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). "The U.S. Small Business Administration's decision to prohibit legal permanent residents, including green card holders, from accessing SBA-backed loans has the potential for disastrous consequences that could reverberate throughout America's economy for years to come. After all, immigrants are twice as likely to start small businesses as U.S.-born individuals. Congress must overturn rules requiring the SBA to block legal permanent residents from accessing lending resources because so many of the entrepreneurs who drive job creation in this country were born outside the United States," said John Arensemeyer, Founder and CEO of Small Business Majority. “NCRC supports the Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn SBA’s citizenship restrictions that bar green-card holders from receiving the 7(a) and 504 loans. When qualified entrepreneurs are denied access to SBA loans, all of Main Street gets hurt. Communities lose jobs. Neighborhoods lose services. Local economies lose the opportunity to build wealth and shrink disparities,” said Jesse Van Tol, President & CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). “We cannot afford to have the American Dream out of reach for hard-working, immigrant small business owners.” “Asian Americans and Asian immigrants have been integral in building local economies. They create businesses, jobs, and opportunities in communities across the country that benefit everyone. Lawful permanent residents pay taxes, invest in their communities, and strengthen Main Street, yet the SBA's discriminatory citizenship restrictions unfairly deny them access to the same tools that help small businesses grow and succeed. We applaud congressional leaders for advancing this resolution to overturn the latest restrictions on SBA lending for green card holders, and we urge lawmakers to also pass the Investing in the American Dream Act to fully restore access to SBA loan programs for all eligible people in the United States. Ensuring that immigrant-owned small businesses have a fair opportunity to access capital is essential to building a stronger, more inclusive economy that works for all,” said Joanna Derman, Director of Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights and National Security at Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). "Immigrant-owned businesses often turn to SBA 7(a) and 504 loans because they face higher denial rates from traditional lenders,” said Imani Augustus, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Opportunity. "These programs provide the capital they need to expand operations, hire workers, and invest in their businesses. Reversing the ban on lawful permanent residents is a critical first step toward ensuring these financing tools are accessible to everyone strengthening their communities through entrepreneurship. We applaud this action and urge Congress to fully restore access by passing the Investing in the American Dream Act.” "Last year, nearly 5,700 SBA loans worth $5.7 billion went to businesses owned by green card holders, supporting more than 80,000 jobs. These are entrepreneurs who have put down roots here, hired their neighbors, and invested in the communities they call home. Barring them from capital doesn't protect Main Street—it starves it. What should matter is the strength of a business and its potential to grow, not the immigration status of its owner. This resolution doesn’t eliminate all the citizenship restrictions in SBA’s policy change, but it’s a step toward restoring a commonsense principle that stood for more than 30 years," said Howard Wial, Director of Research at ICIC. "I'm encouraged to see Congress moving to reopen access to capital for green card holders, a key tool for small business survival. Green card holders accounted for an estimated 5,700 SBA loans in Fiscal Year 2025, worth $5.7 billion and supporting more than 80,000 jobs across the country. That capital is often what keeps a business operating through its toughest stretches when cash flow gets tight. When qualified entrepreneurs lose access to that capital over their immigration status rather than their ability to repay a loan, it's the local economy that pays the price,” said Small Business for America's Future Co-Chair Shaundell Newsome, Founder of Sumnu Marketing. “Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and entrepreneurs —including green card holders — take risks every day to build businesses, create jobs, and strengthen communities. SBA loan programs should be administered with clear, consistent standards that safeguard public resources while ensuring these programs remain focused on supporting eligible entrepreneurs and job creators. This resolution responds to the opportunity to support all entrepreneurs and preserve the integrity of federally supported lending programs. We applaud the introduction of this resolution and remain committed to policies that strengthen small businesses, promote economic growth, and maintain confidence in these vital lending programs,” said Carolina Martinez, CEO of CAMEO Network. “National CAPACD wholeheartedly supports the introduction of this resolution aimed at overturning the SBA's misguided policy prohibiting immigrants from accessing the 7(a) and 504 loan programs. As a coalition, we are committed to creating systems, organizations, and societies that are fair and just. We believe we and our economy are stronger when we uplift our rich and diverse communities. Access to capital helps small businesses create jobs, build wealth, and strengthen neighborhoods. Restoring this pathway is an important first step toward ensuring immigrant entrepreneurs can continue to grow their businesses and contribute positively to our economy as a whole. We urge Congress to build on this momentum by passing the Investing in the American Dream Act, which would fully restore fair access to safe and affordable credit and uphold our commitment to a fair economy that works for everyone,” said Seema Agnani, CEO of National CAPACD. Ranking Member Markey is fighting for small business owners and immigrants that rely on SBA loans to start and run their businesses, create jobs, and contribute to their communities. In May, Ranking Member Markey highlighted the significant contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country and condemned the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on immigrant communities at a Small Business Committee hearing. MIRA’s Elizabeth Sweet, who participated in Ranking Member Markey’s listening session earlier in May, provided testimony at the hearing. Also in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a listening session at the Urban College of Boston to hear directly from several Massachusetts immigrant small business owners, lenders, and chambers of commerce how President Trump’s cruel and callous anti-immigrant policies are hurting Main Streets in the Bay State. Earlier in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a press conference alongside Ranking Member Velázquez, Democratic lawmakers, and stakeholders to condemn the Trump administration’s harmful anti-immigrant lending policies and to introduce the Investing in the American Dream Act. In March, Ranking Member Markey released a comprehensive report detailing the harms to small business owners, workers, and consumers caused by the Trump administration’s ICE raids in communities across the country. In February, Ranking Member Markey introduced the Small Business ICE Disruption Fund Act, which would provide grants to small businesses that have been impacted by the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement actions on Main Streets across the United States. Earlier in February, Ranking Member Markey, Ranking Member Velázquez, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) sent a letter urging the SBA to rescind their lending rule change that bars legal permanent residents from receiving SBA loans. Previously, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez released a statement condemning the actions of the SBA after it announced that small businesses with legal permanent residents will be barred from receiving SBA loans. In December 2025, Ranking Member Markey and all Democratic members of the Senate Small Business Committee sent a letter to the SBA reiterating concerns with the SBA’s citizenship requirements and highlighting a drop in SBA lending volume. In September 2025, Ranking Member Markey heard directly from SBA lenders about the issues with the citizenship verification requirements. In July 2025, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez sent a letter to the SBA expressing serious concerns with the agency’s new, draconian citizenship verification requirements that require small businesses seeking SBA loans to be 100% owned by U.S. citizens, nationals, and legal permanent residents. SBA has not responded to the letter. ###

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Jul 23 • 12:49 PM EDT • Business • sbc.senate.gov
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Some House Republicans defect to again pass resolution seeking to halt military action in Iran

The House on Thursday narrowly passed a resolution to halt U.S. military action in Iran, sending a warning to President Donald Trump for the second time as the war has escalated and the future of the conflict is increasingly uncertain.

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Jul 23 • 12:19 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
When It Comes to Fusion, Materials Matter

Fusion at high temperatures powers the sun and, if harnessed, could provide a potential source of energy here on Earth. But controlling fusion reactions has other benefits. The process also generates subatomic particles called neutrons that are used in a range of applications spanning medicine, research, and national security. Now, scientists at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found that the materials surrounding a fusion reaction can dramatically increase how often it occurs, particularly at low energies where fusion is rare. The study was published July 18 in Nature Communications. Their approach sets up a way to study and engineer nuclear reactions within solid materials, opening a new field of “materials-driven fusion.” Instead of designing materials just to survive the harsh conditions of fusion, researchers might be able to design materials that boost the reaction in specific conditions, similar to the way catalysts speed up chemical processes. “It gives you a new knob to turn that you didn’t have before,” said Arun Persaud, head of the Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology group in Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division. “If we understand this effect better, it opens the door to engineering new materials that would affect the fusion rate under certain conditions. Someday future progress might enable more compact and efficient neutron generators, which have all kinds of applications, like cargo screening, planetary science, and medical therapy and imaging.” In the experiment, researchers used two different methods to pack deuterium, a heavy form of hydrogen atoms that is often used in fusion, into thin foils of palladium and titanium. They then fired a beam of deuterium ions at the foils at different energies and measured how often fusion happened. Then they compared the rates from the different materials and methods with the “bare” fusion reaction (not in a material). The team found that fusion rates depended on how the deuterium was loaded into the metal foils. The biggest effect was at the lowest energies, below 2.5 kiloelectronvolts (keV), where theory predicts fusion rates drop off sharply. Instead, researchers found a surprising plateau: Some samples showed elevated fusion rates roughly a quintillion times higher than bare fusion reactions. (A quintillion is a 1 followed by 18 zeroes.) Researchers are not exactly sure why that’s happening, though they have some ideas and ways to test them. The electrons and defects within the material might partially shield repulsive electrostatic forces between deuterium nuclei, making it easier for them to get close together and fuse. Tuning the electronic structure, defects, and composition of materials could help make nuclear reactions happen more readily. “It comes down to better understanding the mechanism so that we can try to enhance it,” said corresponding author Jeremy Munday, a professor at UC Davis. “We’ve seen that we can increase fusion rates, but what is the limit? Can we bring it to lower temperatures or energies? There’s obviously a lot of interest and excitement about fusion, so if there’s something we can learn about the physics at these lower energy scales, maybe there’s something we can translate to other areas of nuclear science.” The team plans to explore a wider range of materials and continue probing the unexpected fusion plateau at lower energies. Their work establishes a reproducible experimental platform to study how solid materials influence nuclear reactions, creating a new area of research that links fusion science with materials science and chemistry. “The work shows conclusively that the material environment where fusion occurs at low temperatures is an active participant rather than a passive container,” said Cameron Geddes, director of ATAP. “That adds a new dimension to fusion research.” This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

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Jul 23 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • newscenter.lbl.gov
House again passes resolution seeking to halt military action in Iran as some Republicans defect

The House has narrowly passed a resolution to halt U.S. military action in Iran, sending a warning to President Donald Trump for the second time as the war has escalated and the future of the conflict is increasingly uncertain

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Jul 23 • 10:33 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com
Yu Deng Predicts the Actions of the Whole From Its Tiniest Parts

Dr. Deng, a mathematics professor at the University of Chicago, received a Fields Medal for his work on an equation describing fluid mechanics.

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Jul 23 • 10:17 AM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
1.3K views · 16 reactions | Sony Pictures Entertainment said that it...

Sony Pictures Entertainment said that it would reopen the Cinerama Dome, a Hollywood landmark, in 2028 after a renovation. Read more: https://nyti.ms/4x35CMZ

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Jul 22 • 11:52 PM EDT • Entertainment • facebook.com
Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities

Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.

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Jul 22 • 6:19 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities

Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.

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Jul 22 • 6:19 PM EDT • Science • nytimes.com
A Better Starting Point for Science and Society: Relationship vs. Transaction

A knowledge-deficit model underpins much of scientists’ communication to the public. The solution? Scientists need to more generous and less needy.

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Jul 22 • 5:26 PM EDT • Science • headlines.ametsoc.org
House passes temporary government funding bill months early

The deadline for action is more than two months away, but House GOP leaders are not leaving to chance another possible shutdown souring the mood of voters shortly before they go to the polls.

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Jul 22 • 3:27 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
🙂 Positive (35%)
DIII Management Council approves amendment to guidelines on reinstating student-athletes who commit sports-betting violations

At its meeting this week, the Division III Management Council approved an amendment to the Division III Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement sports-betting guidelines. The council’s action would allow for penalty reductions for a student-athlete who commits a sports-betting violation, provided it is the student-athlete’s first violation, the violation does not involve integrity concerns and the student-athlete engages in appropriate clinical evaluation or support.

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Jul 22 • 2:30 PM EDT • Sports • ncaa.org
IAM Texas State Council Charts Course for Organizing and Political Action

Nearly 100 participants, including delegates, guests, speakers, and IAM leaders from industries across the Lone Star State, gathered in Austin for the 2026 IAM Texas State Council Meeting to discuss the issues facing working families, strengthen the union’s legislative and organizing efforts, and hear from labor and political leaders committed to advancing workers’ rights. Texas

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Jul 22 • 2:05 PM EDT • Politics • goiam.org
Hasbro reveals The Legend of Zelda: Heroes of Hyrule toys

The wait is over, as Hasbro has officially revealed the first images of its new The Legend of Zelda action figure line, known as Heroes of Hyrule. The collectibles are based on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, rather than the upcoming live-action movie as some had speculated. Each figure features extensive articulation and includes a variety of...

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Jul 22 • 11:28 AM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com
Soulslike action RPG FOUNTAINS coming to PS5, Xbox Series, and Switch in 2026 alongside new DLC

Publisher Crunching Koalas and developer John Pywell will release Soulslike action RPG FOUNTAINS for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Switch in 2026 alongside a new downloadable content, the compani…

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Jul 22 • 11:10 AM EDT • Technology • gematsu.com
Patient Action Leaders Advancing Novel, Transformative, Equitable (PA’LANTE) Healthcare

UConn Health Disparities Institute and Hispanic Health Council amplifying Latina voices to improve healthcare in Connecticut.

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Jul 22 • 10:25 AM EDT • Health • today.uconn.edu
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Nestle nears sale of water business stake at close to €5 billion valuation, FT reports

Private equity firm ‌Platinum Equity is nearing a deal to acquire about a 50% stake in Nestle's ​European water business in a ​transaction that would value the joint ⁠venture at almost €5 billion ($5.71 billion), the ​Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

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Jul 22 • 9:49 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com
'The Super Mario Galaxy' Movie Returns Atop U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through July 22

Universal’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie returned atop of the Official Film Chart, the U.K.’s weekly home entertainment sales chart, through July 22. The former chart topper in June, the animated family adventure held off the transactional debut of A24’s box office sleeper hit Backrooms, which debuted at No. 2. The sci-fi horror, which taps into … Continue reading "‘The Super Mario Galaxy’ Movie Returns Atop U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through July 22"

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Jul 22 • 9:48 AM EDT • Entertainment • mediaplaynews.com
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Watch9: Your Health Companion on the Wrist

Deeper insights, more accurate tracking and lasting comfort help users turn daily data into actionable guidance

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Jul 22 • 9:06 AM EDT • Health • news.samsung.com
Leveraging Customer Relationship Management to Advance Public Health

This toolkit provides actionable strategies for choosing a CRM tool best for your public health agency.

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Jul 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • astho.org
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Watch9: Your Health Companion on the Wrist

Deeper insights, more accurate tracking and lasting comfort help users turn daily data into actionable guidance

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Jul 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Health • news.samsung.com
First steps forward for the implementation of the Health Action Plan

ENISA is the EU agency dedicated to enhancing cybersecurity in Europe. They offer guidance, tools, and resources to safeguard citizens and businesses from cyber threats.

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Jul 22 • 8:21 AM EDT • Health • enisa.europa.eu
Health Law Attorney Hannah McSween Cole Rejoins Baker Donelson as Of Counsel in Knoxville

Hannah McSween Cole, an attorney with extensive experience advising health care organizations on mergers and acquisitions, strategic transactions, and operational and compliance matters, has rejoined Baker Donelson as of counsel in the Firm's Health Law Group.

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Jul 22 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • bakerdonelson.com
From Paper to Action: How Systematic Monitoring Can Help Health Benefits Packages Deliver on Their Promise

Health Benefits Packages (HBPs) can be a strategic tool to advance Universal Health Coverage. But their impact depends not only on the services included, but also on whether people effectively receive those services with adequate quality and financial protection. It also depends on the factors behind implementation gaps. While there is no shortage of guidance for using evidence-informed priority-setting approaches, less attention has been paid to monitoring whether, how, and why HBPs deliver (or not) in the real world. This gap matters, particularly in the context of stagnating progress towards Universal Health Coverage, because it leaves policymakers in the dark: Are HBPs delivering on the promise made to the population? If not, why, and what corrective action can be taken?

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Jul 22 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • cgdev.org
Anthropic to Donate $20 Million to US Political Group That Supports AI Regulation

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - AI giant Anthropic will ⁠donate $20 ⁠million to a lobbying ⁠organization that supports AI regulation, according to a company statement released on Wednesday, its latest move to influence U.S. policy on the technology. The company ‌is donating to Public First ‌Action,

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Jul 22 • 5:03 AM EDT • Politics • usnews.com
Big Ank Lost By Accident!

Former UFC Light Heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev still has revenge on his mind. “Big Ank” returns to action this weekend (July 25, 2026) in the main event of UFC Abu Dhabi versus Uzbek knockout artist Bogdan Guskov (not Khalil Rountree Jr.). It’s been about ten months since Ankalaev’s title loss to Alex Pereira, a quick […]

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Jul 22 • 3:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Seattle Seahawks Work Out Former Packers, Ole Miss Receiver

The Seattle Seahawks are exploring another option for an already crowded wide receiver competition.Seattle hosted Malik Heath and three defensive backs for tryouts, according to the NFL transaction wire.Heath, 26, brings more regular-season experience than most players searching for an opportunity this close to training camp.The 6-foot-2, 213-pound receiver spent his first three NFL seasons […] The post Seattle Seahawks Work Out Former Packers, Ole Miss Receiver appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 21 • 9:31 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Patriots Make Harold Landry Roster Move Amid Injury Concerns

The New England Patriots are getting ready for training camp, and they have received a big update on Harold Landry's status before the action gets underway. The post Patriots Make Harold Landry Roster Move Amid Injury Concerns appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 21 • 8:33 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Business in Oak Creek Canyon worried about impact of flooding threat

Last week’s flooding turned Oak Creek dark as water carried charred debris downstream after the Pocket Fire. Forest Houses Resort says floodwaters rose about 5 feet at its crossing, leaving it impassable until crews cleared sediment. Owners say continued flash flood concerns have prompted guest cancellations, even as their private property remains accessible. Businesses say open trails, restaurants and other attractions still give visitors reasons to come to Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon.

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Jul 21 • 8:19 PM EDT • Business • azfamily.com
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Providing Contemporary Educational Programming Leads Business Law Section Chair’s Agenda - New York State Bar Association

Luca Melchionna understands the value of education and collaboration through his 30-year career working in higher education and as a transactional attorney. His background is the basis of his initiatives for the upcoming 11 months where his focus will be on increasing engagement through developing cutting-edge programming. “My priority is to connect our members with

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Jul 21 • 8:07 PM EDT • Business • nysba.org
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New Michigan budget delivers mixed results for business community

The 2026-27 budget expands community college scholarships and a child care program while reducing funding for workforce training, business attraction and tourism.

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Jul 21 • 6:03 PM EDT • Business • crainsdetroit.com
Cyclospora False Positive? Why We Should Still Trust Outbreak Science

Cyclospora lab test retraction by FDA does not negate outbreak science.

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Jul 21 • 9:29 AM EDT • Science • forbes.com
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US Treasury's Bessent tells Fox Business 50% Canada tariffs are 'reciprocity'

U.S. Treasury ‌Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that the 50% tariffs on a ​range of imports from ​Canada were "reciprocity" for trade actions by ⁠Ottawa on U.S. dairy, ​alcohol and beverages.

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Jul 21 • 9:03 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com
Treasury intercepts nearly $99M in federal payments to deceased individuals under Trump fraud order

A new Treasury fraud verification system screened 885 million transactions worth $2.77 trillion, catching over 4,900 improper payments to deceased recipients.

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Jul 21 • 8:20 AM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com
Kyle Klein Named Associate Commissioner for Sports Administration and Championships

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Mid-American Conference Commissioner Dr. Jon A. Steinbrecher has named Kyle Klein Associate Commissioner for Sports Administration and Championships, effective July 1, 2026.

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Jul 21 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • getsomemaction.com
Healthy diet too expensive for one in three people globally, UN report finds

Global hunger declined for the third year in a row in 2025 but experts call for action to bring down costs of fruit, vegetables and dairy as report shows 2.69bn people can’t afford to eat well

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Jul 21 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • theguardian.com
Pro-science PAC backs El-Sayed

314 Action, which has been criticized for ties to pro-Israel lobbying in the past, shows a shake-up in Michigan

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Jul 21 • 5:30 AM EDT • Science • salon.com
Relationships Over Transactions: Interstellar.Plus Founder Matthew Hoag On Doing Business On A Different Value System

Pollstar speaks with Matthew Hoag, founder and CEO of Interstellar Plus — in his own words, “a growth consultancy company that partners up with projects that

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Jul 21 • 5:09 AM EDT • Business • news.pollstar.com
Parasitic infections likely linked to farming practices, not restaurants

Two state experts break down the mysteries around a complicated foodborne infection, Cyclosporiasis, that’s been gaining traction in North Carolina and across the nation.

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Jul 21 • 4:39 AM EDT • Health • northcarolinahealthnews.org
YOHANNES WOLDEMARIAM - Liberation Gold and the New Politics of Extraction

Can political orders emerging from war build institutions strong enough to ensure that wealth becomes public capacity rather than a new form of domination?

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Jul 21 • 4:00 AM EDT • Politics • theelephant.info
NVIDIA Shows DLSS 5 Progress and Technical Details at SIGGRAPH 2026

NVIDIA has once again showcased its DLSS 5 neural rendering at the SIGGRAPH 2026 event, currently taking place in Los Angeles. Despite the initial negative reaction from gamers, NVIDIA is continuing to develop the technology, offering improvements and a new demonstration of how DLSS 5 is intended...

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Jul 21 • 3:27 AM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com
Fan Favorite Takes on TUF Winner at UFC Paris

Nathaniel Wood is back in action on September 5 in Paris, France. The Englishman puts his four-fight winning streak on the line against The Ultimate Fighter season 32 winner Mairon Santos. Both fighters will meet in the featherweight division.Multiple sources have confirmed the booking to Heavy.com. While both Wood and Santos remain unranked in the […] The post Fan Favorite Takes on TUF Winner at UFC Paris appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 21 • 12:20 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Jose Caballero's "routine'' sparks Yankees-Pirates bench clearer

Pirates' reliever Dennis Santana's overreaction to Jose Caballero's habitual, but legal, stall tactics at the plate led to an eighth inning incident.

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Jul 21 • 12:09 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Nintendo says it has no legal duty to pass its U.S. tariff refunds on to consumers

Nintendo is asking a court to dismiss a proposed class action suit that was filed this past spring by gamers who say the Mario maker is breaking the law if it doesn’t pass on its U.S. tariff refunds to consumers. Those consumers “received exactly what they bargained and paid for” when buying price-hiked Nintendo goods last year, the company said in a filing on Monday in the case of Hoffert et al v. Nintendo. “Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.” Nintendo increased the price of Switch 2 controllers and the original Switch last year, following the imposition of globe-spanning U.S. tariffs (tariffs described by Nintendo’s lawyers on Monday as “sweeping” and “constantly changing”). This past February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs were illegal. A month later, Nintendo sued the U.S. government to get a refund. And in April, gamers filed the class action claim against Nintendo in Washington, saying it would be illegally double-dipping if it made money from tariff-hiked sales and then from a refund. The gamers sought relief for anyone in the U.S. who bought price-hiked Nintendo items between February 2025 and February 2026. “The common thread among Plaintiffs’ claims is that it is somehow ‘unfair; that Nintendo has not retroactively adjusted its prices for completed sales in response to the outcome of the tariff litigation,” the company’s lawyers wrote in today’s motion to dismiss. “But that is now how commercial transactions work.

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Jul 21 • 12:07 AM EDT • Technology • gamefile.news
Bills’ ‘Nightmare’ Scenario Revealed That Could Derail Josh Allen’s Season

The Buffalo Bills made a big decision this offseason when they parted ways with head coach Sean McDermott and promoted Joe Brady to the new role.Buffalo struggled to reach the Super Bowl over the last six seasons, so it needed to take action to give the Bills and their fans a boost, which meant parting […] The post Bills’ ‘Nightmare’ Scenario Revealed That Could Derail Josh Allen’s Season appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 20 • 11:11 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
SPAN Launches Refrigerant Working Group to Advance Science-Based PFAS Policies

The Sustainable PFAS Action Network (SPAN) announced on July 15, 2026, the formation of its Refrigerant Working Group, “a new initiative focused

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Jul 20 • 10:12 PM EDT • Science • lawbc.com
Experts agree at landmark event that simulation should be built into health system

On 15 June 2026, over 80 representatives from simulation societies, ministries of health, hospitals, universities, international organizations, professional associations and industry partners met at the WHO Academy in Lyon for a joint event of WHO and the Society for Simulation in Europe (SESAM). Together they tackled a pressing question: how can simulation move from isolated initiatives to systematic integration within health systems? The consensus was clear: simulation is no longer a niche educational tool. Beyond training, it strengthens health systems by improving quality of care, patient safety, workforce preparedness, team performance and organizational resilience.Participants agreed the evidence for simulation’s value no longer needs to be demonstrated, but that implementation remains fragmented and too often dependent on individual local champions. Bridging that gap, they said, means both generating further evidence and raising awareness among decision-makers.Discussions pointed to a shared path forward. To achieve scale and lasting impact, simulation must be embedded in national policies, workforce development plans, education systems and financing mechanisms. No institution can do this alone; stronger collaboration between governments, health institutions, academia, professional societies, international organizations and industry partners will be essential.“At the WHO Academy, we see simulation not simply as a training methodology but as a strategic tool for capacity-building, workforce readiness and stronger health systems,” said Dr Bart Janssens, Unit Head, Health Learning and Capacity Building. “This event is not only about discussion; it is about moving from ideas to action.”As health systems worldwide face workforce shortages, growing complexity of care and rapidly evolving competency needs, participants concluded that the question is no longer “Why simulation?” but rather how to scale it, how to sustain it, and how to ensure it becomes an integral part of stronger health systems.Looking aheadThe event marked the beginning of a collaborative effort rather than the end of a conversation. Over the coming weeks, WHO and SESAM will consolidate the discussions, recommendations and priorities that emerged, with a joint WHO–SESAM report to be published soon.

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Jul 20 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • who.int
UFC Freedom 250 Fails to Knock Out The Ratings

(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) If UFC fans wanted one image to say, “Hey, Paramount+ is crushing it with their UFC rights deal,” I could provide that image. Here it is: (Reminder: this is my creation of the Nielsen Top 30, since Nielsen doesn’t combine the lists or include sports. I take all three lists and combine them. Some streaming TV shows probably have higher ratings than many of the films on this list.) Look at that! UFC Freedom 250 is number one! It topped the Nielsen “Top 30” list for shows and films that made the top ten the week of 15-June. So if you’re a UFC fan or supporter of Paramount+, that’s the good news for you this week. This program topped the ratings charts for one week. Everything else is bad news, or at least a huge caveat to that story, which I’ll explain today in the first part of this week’s Streaming Ratings Report—for the weeks of 8-June and 15-June—which is a double issue since I’ve been writing on a bunch of topics recently. UFC Freedom 250 is one of the biggest streaming events of the year, and super relevant to Paramount+’s strategy, so it merited its own article. Let’s dive in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of June 8th to June 21st 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Check Out My Interview on UFC 250 at MMA Draw After you read this article, if you want even more thoughts on UFC and Paramount-Skydance/Paramount+, I did a written interview with MMA Draw. They asked me to answer some questions about UFC Freedom 250, and I was happy to chat with them. Find it here: [ The MMA Draw Newsletter Did Paramount really overpay for the UFC? What the data tells us so far If you know the history of American television, you also know that combat sports is often a leading indicator of the future… Read more a day ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Nate Wilcox and Zach Arnold ](https://www.themmadraw.com/p/did-paramount-really-overpay-for?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) I never thought I’d need a combat sports newsletter in my life, but the good folks at MMA Draw publish an excellent one on UFC, MMA, pro wrestling, boxing and more, analyzing both the sports themselves and the politics, economics and antitrust issues that impact them. Check the article and their newsletter out! Paramount+ Has Its Best Sporting Event of All Time…But Was It Worth It? Before we look at the UFC Freedom 250 data in particular, let’s talk about what we can’t say. Namely, let’s start with the lack of comparisons. First off, I’d love to put a chart out comparing this fight to past UFC fights on Paramount+…but we don’t have the data. This is the first time we’ve gotten Nielsen data about a Paramount+ UFC fight. As far as I can tell, Paramount provided data for the first fight, but it was a proprietary datecdote (saying it had “an average minute audience” of 5 million “views”) and then, for two fights, we got the linear viewership numbers when they aired on CBS, but no streaming data. Everything else was crickets. We also can’t compare this fight to other fights/combat sports on streaming, in particular the MMA and boxing, because Netflix also didn’t use Nielsen to track those events, opting for TVision and VideoAmp, respectively. (This isn’t Paramount’s fault, but does still suck.) We also can’t compare to UFC’s fights that used to be on ESPN+, since we don’t have any data for that, plus Disney+ didn’t have marquee fights. The comparisons would not be apples-to-apples. Can we compare to past Pay-Per-View fights? Absolutely not. The comparisons would absolutely NOT be apples-to-apples. That didn’t stop Paramount+, though, who bragged that their UFC events have reached drastically more people than past PPV fights. Duh. Sorry, but I gotta make this point again. A basic tenet of economics is that the cheaper something becomes, the more people consume or buy it. That’s Econ 101. (Sometimes pundits call things “Econ 101” that are actually like Econ 210 or even PhD-level economics, but no, this is really like first or second class basic economics.) Yet I still see one analytics firm consistently say that more people watch films on streaming than PVOD proves streaming which means that the streaming window is more valuable than the PVOD window. No, it’s not! Same thing here. Pay-Per-View events back in the day could be really, really, really expensive! So whole groups of people pitched in to buy them. That increased the perceived value of, say, the Mike Tyson fight. Or a UFC numbered event. So yes, the fact that Paramount+ makes numbered UFC fights essentially “free” if you’re already a Paramount+ member means consumption will go up. Obviously. Same for Netflix and their boxing matches. They’re talking about fights that used to cost consumers, in some cases, $50 in 1996…which is over $100 in today’s dollars. Over 1.6 million people paid that to watch the Tyson-Holyfield fight! Again, streaming is essentially “free”. Or $10 to $20, depending on what streamer we’re talking about and what tier you’re on. No wonder more people are “watching”. (Plus, Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing also helps these numbers.) UFC Freedom 250 Did Well…But I Have A Lot of Worries So what can we compare the fights to? Well, the good news is Nielsen put out that the fight averaged 7.0 million viewers for UFC Freedom 250, which is a solid number for a fight. We also know the length, at roughly 4 and a half hours. (I saw different run times, but this seems to be the consensus considering it started at 8 pm, had a delay and then finished after midnight on the East Coast. If you assume a shorter run time, then yes, the total hours viewed would go down.) That means I have the two numbers needed to add this to my Nielsen database. And then…I can compare this viewership to the NFL: And, uh, not great. But also within striking distance, mainly because the runtime for this event was so long. I’d also add that this event had viewership equal to a regular season NFL game on streaming, but if anything, it was more comparable to an NFL playoff or Super Bowl-esque event. And you can compare viewership to the top football games on broadcast, cable and streaming, and it’s not impressive at all: We can also compare it to other sports that week, including the NBA Finals and start of the World Cup: Again, not great. The NBA generated roughly four times as many average viewers each game for its NBA Finals. The World Cup has similarly big numbers. Also, that’s just a tiny fraction of the 25 most watched sporting events each week. The NBA, NHL and FIFA World Cup had many, many more games racking up hours. We could also compare this to other streaming programs to get an idea of “is this a good investment?” and here is how it ranks compared to other top Paramount+ programs: The worry here? Well, unlike scripted programming, which has rewatchability, older fights/sporting events have very little library value. Very, very few people are rewatching these fights, especially years from now. Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers. Then, in their quarterly earnings report, they only ended up with 700K subs. Not great! They claimed they dropped lower-value international subscribers, but that’s why I tend to discount subscriber additions when they’re leaked to the press.1 I expect we may see a bump again for UFC Freedom 250, but I’d caution using subscriber growth so soon after these events to judge the success, since new subs with high churn (see Peacock) aren’t great either. Also, analysts often want to attribute all subscriber growth to their favorite/pet show, and that just doesn’t make sense. The biggest caveat for UFC Freedom 250 and Paramount’s very first UFC marquee event is that these could be high watermarks for the sport. UFC Freedom 250 had an incredible amount of earned media coverage compared to most UFC fights. I mean, it had wall-to-wall national news coverage in the lead up to the event. (The first fight also had a lot of promotion from Paramount since it was first.) Other fights could reach this bar—say the Conor McGregor return to the Octagon—but they’ll be fewer and far between. Was This Deal Worth It? All to ask: is this Paramount deal worth it? In this case, I think the UFC Freedom 250 numbers are more distracting than helpful. This fight did well and compares well to other top sporting events. But we know that the first marquee event was at least a third smaller, if Paramount’s own data is to be believed. And it’s likely the other fights are much, much, much smaller. And then you get to the paycheck that Paramount-Skydance paid. FIFA’s World Cup cost about the same for Fox, but clearly generated multiples more total viewership. (Though it’s only every four years.) The NBA is much more expensive, but until the playoffs, they likely didn’t pay for itself. Even still, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video likely overpaid. So, in that context, the NBA may be an overpay that makes the UFC look not so bad. But two overpays don’t make an underpay, to paraphrase the old cliché about wrongs and rights. And looking at UFC Freedom 250 as the likely ceiling of MMA on Paramount+, Paramount-Skydance likely paid too much. Share 1 I would love regular reports on subscriber additions by programs, but as is, it’s mostly leaked or rumored in haphazard ways.

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Jul 20 • 6:48 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com
US judge temporary halts Paramount-Warner entertainment giant merger

Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin issues 14-day restraining order preventing $110B transaction, sets hearing on preliminary injunction for Aug. 3 | Anadolu

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Jul 20 • 6:08 PM EDT • Entertainment • aa.com.tr
Amendment 64: New Opportunity: A.15 Biosphere

NASA's Biosphere research area focuses on research that provides foundational knowledge on interactions between and within terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems,

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Jul 20 • 4:23 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov
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OMB Publishes 2026 Unified Agenda Signaling Upcoming Health Privacy and Interoperability Updates from HHS

The Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) has released its 2026 Unified Agenda, which identifies regulatory actions that federal agencies expect to

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Jul 20 • 1:57 PM EDT • Health • insideprivacy.com
Trump’s attacks on democracy reveal his authoritarian ambitions | LSE United States Politics and Policy

Trump is becoming a dictator, one who combines the transactional pursuit of profit and power with racism, white supremacy, and personalised rule.

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Jul 20 • 10:02 AM EDT • Politics • blogs.lse.ac.uk
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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Jul 20 • 9:29 AM EDT • Science • democracysos.substack.com
Science can serve dark as well as light

I’m not sure how many of you are watching “Star City,” Apple TV’s spin-off of its “For All Mankind” program (2019-present), but it’s one of the better sci-fi series I’ve seen in a while, with an impressively dark political message. (Some light spoilers below.) For the uninitiated, “For All Mankind” presented a slightly tweaked history of the U.S. space program in which it was the USSR that landed on the Moon first in 1969, and shortly thereafter put a woman cosmonaut on the lunar surface. This sparks an ongoing space race that, in the original series, yields a lot of benefits for humanity. President Nixon’s insistence on a female astronaut corps to compete with the Soviets boosts the feminist movement of the 1970s and the ERA passes. New fuels generated for the space program create clean and cheap energy around Earth. There are also some darker changes — the USSR is thriving well into the 2000s, there are terrorist counter-technology movements around the globe, laborers on Mars work in nightmarish conditions and organize strikes and riots, etc. the @smotus report is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe That show offers glimpses into the subtle ways this Earth is different. Teddy Kennedy never went to Chappaquidick because he was racing back to Washington to deal with the space program crisis; he gets elected President in 1972. John Lennon survives his early 1980s shooting but Pope John Paul II does not. The Apple Newton succeeded. Pretty much the whole of season 4 is a setup for an Al Gore joke. Again, mostly, the vision that “For All Mankind” presents is a positive one, with technology advancing many human interests. “Star City” goes in a very different direction. This spin-off show is about the same set of events but from the Soviet perspective. As we meet them, the team of scientists and cosmonauts responsible for the lunar landing are still basking in their hero status, but their program is embedded deep in the Soviet security state of the late 1960s. Everyone’s apartment is bugged. Whole teams of clerical staff spend their days transcribing recordings of people’s lives. People in the program, including respected cosmonauts, are regularly arrested. An incredibly menacing Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) forces confessions and tortures and kills, expressing little more than annoyance in the process. Meanwhile, the space program’s highly respected Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans) has a vision for the program that he knows the government will not approve. He insists that they need to think past the Moon to focus on colonizing the solar system, starting with Venus. (This is a rough parallel to the Americans’ pivot to Mars in the original show.) He essentially builds a secret space program within the space program, calculating that the government will embrace the mission after it has succeeded. (As an aside, I’m not sure why the Venus obsession, as a successful mission can’t produce the biggest public relations payoff: a cosmonaut standing on the surface holding the Soviet flag. Anyone standing on Venus would be immediately crushed by the 92-bar atmosphere and then cremated in the 900°F temperatures. But in a country with no free press perhaps the visual payoff was less valued.) But the overall vision is that the technological advances have only amplified the most fearsome aspects of the Soviet system. The state is paranoid (but not incorrect) about American spies and does monstrous things to protect its secrets. People are terrified to trust each other. Classic banality-of-evil figures order people to harm those they care about; those people comply rather than get shot. Others are forced into criminal behavior to protect loved ones. We’re reminded all the time these days of what happens when a government despises science. It manifests in the defunding of schools, the elevation of fossil fuels as the rest of the world pivots to solar, outbreaks of measles and diarrhea, etc. But “Star City” offers a vision of a bad government that likes science. It’s not encouraging. It’s not yet clear if there will be a season two of this show. But I strongly recommend season one. It’s both thoughtful and gripping. Share

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Jul 20 • 8:04 AM EDT • Science • smotus.substack.com
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Jul 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • familiesusa.org
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Jul 20 • 7:09 AM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
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Commentary: Hollywood's guaranteed paydays for stars are bad bets now

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Necrons return to Kronus in a new Dawn of War IV trailer

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Coach Hayes Media Day Reaction
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Scientists used children’s ‘silly sprinklers’ to solve a physics problem Richard Feynman could not; the reverse version spins 50 times slower

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Jul 19 • 1:27 PM EDT • Science • timesofindia.indiatimes.com
FedEx Delivery Driver Falling Into a Front Yard Pool Outside a Georgia Home Shows What Seconds of Screen Distraction Can Do

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'Complete 180': How the DOJ has redefined its civil rights mission and targeted California

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Jul 19 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • latimes.com
Dana White Reacts to Dricus du Plessis Beating Kamaru Usman

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Jul 19 • 3:21 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
MINNEAPOLIMEDIA PRESENTS | This Weekend in the Twin Cities – Entertainment Guide: July 19, 2026 Edition

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Jul 18 • 1:41 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
A live-action Princess Tiana movie is in the works from Colman Domingo and Robert O'Hara

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Jul 18 • 11:44 AM EDT • Entertainment • mashable.com
Yankees Rivalry Roundup: Red Sox sweep Rays doubleheader

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These 16 Democrats Voted to Stop Israel Aid. AIPAC Took Action.

After 103 Democrats voted to eliminate aid to Israel, the lobbying group closed off online donations for more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers it had endorsed.

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Jul 18 • 9:32 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Takeaways from the AP-NORC poll of more than 1,000 Jewish Americans

The Associated Press has surveyed more than 1,000 Jewish adults in the U.S. to better understand their views on Israel’s military actions in Gaza, their opinions of the political parties and their experiences with prejudice

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Jul 18 • 9:18 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com
Takeaways from the AP-NORC poll of more than 1,000 Jewish Americans

The Associated Press has surveyed more than 1,000 Jewish adults in the U.S. to better understand their views on Israel’s military actions in Gaza, their opinions of the political parties and their experiences with prejudice.

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Jul 18 • 9:12 AM EDT • Politics • ksat.com
😐 Neutral (0%)
These 7 Android shortcuts changed how I use my phone every single day

Make every tap count

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Jul 18 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com