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Postal Service union launches ad campaign promoting mail voting as Trump seeks to limit it
The 30-second message features a variety of voters, among them a busy farmer and a flight attendant, explaining why they cast their ballots by mail.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to stay in business under new nonprofit owner
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will live on past its slated May 3 closure date, thanks to a new deal with a nonprofit journalism organization.
Liam Rosenior “under severe pressure” says Sky Sports pundit who is worried for coach’s future
Liam Rosenior is “under severe pressure” to beat Man U this weekend, but his team get “beaten up” when they play big teams.If you enjoy Chelsea News coverage and want to see more of it, add us...
Postal Service union launches ad campaign promoting mail voting
The 30-second union ad features voters explaining why they vote by mail and will start airing in Ohio this week
How vibe coding app Anything is rebuilding after getting booted from the App Store twice
Anything is planning to launch a desktop companion app to aid mobile app development after its App Store removal.
6 Arsenal youth players join senior training pre-Sporting clash
Six Arsenal youth players were spotted in first-team training ahead of Wednesday’s match against Sporting CP, with at least one expected to make the senior squad for the game.Photo via Mitchell on I...
Opinion - When scientists believed Artemis II space travel was impossible
Artemis II reminds us of just how much science and our perspective can change.
Ultimate science trip
Thirteen juniors and seniors, led by three Westminster Christian Academy science teachers, spent their spring break exploring Quito, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands. The trip was an unforgettable hands-on journey
Ending Relationships Over Politics Has Become Boring
We all need to calm down and relearn how to agree to disagree.
Bengals free-agency reunion candidate gets visit with another team
This Bengals reunion in free agency is getting less likely to happen.
Opinion | A Road Map for Defeating Trumpism
The free world should take an honest look at how Hungary’s opposition party defeated a far-right giant.
Orbán’s Election Defeat Resonates in Washington, Tel Aviv
Vance praised Orbán’s 16-year tenure as “transformational,” portraying him as a key ally who challenged European Union policies.
Opinion: 3 things Democrats should do to support small business in CT
New Haven's Caroline Tanbee Smith outlines 3 pillars of strategy to boost small business in Connecticut.
Quarterback John Mateer, OU offense experiencing 'super productive' offseason
The OU offense has had sharp development throughout the offseason, according to redshirt junior quarterback John Mateer, between his individual throwing mechanics, the team’s communication and rushing improvement.
How downtown San Antonio businesses prepare for Fiesta
A few businesses downtown have front row seats to road and river parades, which bring good business for some and less customers for others.
Victoria Li's senior project: Exploring how AI processes information
Knowing how chatbots turn input into output will help with reliability and trust in AI agents
Two Yale student scientists named Goldwater Scholars
Two Yale juniors have received the prestigious Goldwater scholarship, which supports students interested in research careers in the fields of natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics.
How Amazon is expanding its car-sales business
Amazon (AMZN) is expanding its car-sales business to include Jeep, Chevrolet, and other automakers. Yahoo Finance Senior Autos Reporter Pras Subramanian breaks down the details.
Utah Royals FC Welcomes Dave Tenney as Senior Director of Player Health and Performance
HERRIMAN, Utah (Monday, April 13, 2026) – Utah Soccer President of Soccer Operations Jason Kreis - overseeing Utah Royals FC (National Women’s Soccer League), Real Salt Lake (Major League Soccer), Real Monarchs (MLS NEXT Pro) and the RSL Academy - has named highly-respected sports medicine veteran Dave Tenney as the
LIF-HEALTH-PEDIATRICIAN-QA-DMT
Food allergies have risen by 50% since the 1990s. With this in mind, the American Academy of Pediatrics advocates for the health of all children who must avoid certain foods
Francisco G. Cigarroa named International Citizen of the Year - UT Health San Antonio
Francisco G. Cigarroa, MD, has been named the 2026 International Citizen of the Year by the World Affairs Council of San Antonio.
Tylenol in pregnancy not linked with autism, Danish study finds
The use of Tylenol by women during pregnancy was not associated with autism in their children, according to results of a nationwide study in Denmark published on Monday.
Hezbollah official says the group won't abide by any agreements from Lebanon-Israel talks in the US
A senior Hezbollah official says the Lebanese militant group will not abide by any agreements made in upcoming direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in the United States.
Seattle’s Union Arts Center names first permanent artistic director
Yuvika Tolani comes to the theater company, formed from the merger of ACT Contemporary Theatre and Seattle Shakespeare Company, with an unusual background.
‘Consider it one more sign of the decline in the democratic experiment’
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
Health Sciences Weekend Unites Alumni Around Shared Health Science Center Story
For decades, alumni returned to the University of Tennessee Health Sciences through individual college and class reunions, usually over six different weekends throughout the year.
Health Sciences Weekend Unites Alumni Around Shared Health Science Center Story
For decades, alumni returned to the University of Tennessee Health Sciences through individual college and class reunions, usually over six different weekends throughout the year.
Opinion: I was recruited to play a sport here, but first, my family had to pay for it
It was a hot summer day in east Long Island. Hundreds of kids and parents from across the country piled into a sports complex consisting of four adjacent turf baseball fields. The gates were manned by a brigade of staff who were commandeering the large crowd. “Are these credentials right?” they asked as they showed...
Jokic stars as Nuggets secure third seed in final game
Nikola Jokic scores 23 points in the first half as the Denver Nuggets beat the San Antonio Spurs 128-118 to claim third seed in the Western Conference.
Free Press' Miss Hockey winner stayed confident all season long
Essex junior Calleigh Bruyns named the Free Press' Miss Hockey for the 2025-26 season. Bruyns led Essex to the D-I championship game.
Judson's Arredendo, Clark's Jones highlight Team Blue victories
Judson's Arredendo, Clark's Jones highlight Team Blue victories in the San Antonio Sports All-Star basketball games.
Stop wasting time on hair myths: 5 science-backed secrets that can actually grow your hair
If you’ve ever gone down the rabbit hole of “hair growth hacks,” you already know how confusing it gets. Oil this, don’t oil that. Cut your hair, don’t cut your hair. Everyone seems to have an opinion - and half of it contradicts the other half.So let’s simplify things.Here are 5 science-backed habits that actually support better, healthier hair growth. No overnight miracles - just real, practical changes that make a difference over time.
Jokic to start for Nuggets versus Spurs to quality for award eligibility while Wemby sits
Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic will start for the Denver Nuggets in their regular-season finale against San Antonio on Sunday night for his 65th game played to qualify for NBA awards | 97.3 The Sky
NH Food Bank unveils new brand and strategic vision
The New Hampshire Food Bank, a program of Catholic Charities New Hampshire, has launched a new brand and strategic vision, including a new logo, mission statement and vision statement. The
South San's Guerrero, Alamo Heights' Hart lead Team White to victories
South San's Adam Guerrero and Alamo Heights' Berkley Hart lead Team White to victories in the San Antonio Sports All-Star basketball games.
AIPAC may be a new litmus test for Democratic candidates. Leaders say voters' heads are elsewhere.
Last week's Democratic National Committee meeting illustrated a party trying to stay focused on economic issues while grappling with strong, changing opinions on Israel.
Victor Wembanyama gets real on Spurs' NBA Playoffs hopes
The San Antonio Spurs led by Victor Wembanyama are very excited for the start of the NBA Playoffs.
Rosenior: Chelsea ‘nowhere near’ expectations against Man City
Liam Rosenior was highly critical of Chelsea’s second-half performance after they fell to a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday. The Blues started brightly at Stamford Bridge and even thought t...
Former Xbox Exec Says Developers Didn't Want a Sony Monopoly
Former Xbox executive Ed Fries comments on the early days of Xbox, the opinion of Japanese game companies, and more.
Steeplegate Mall redevelopment in Concord 'has returned,' city manager says
The redevelopment of the Steeplegate Mall in Concord is still in the works after multiple lawsuits stalled the massive project, according to city officials.
Chelsea 0-3 Man City: What Rosenior said
If you go down against teams as good as this, what you have to do for the next five minutes is to stay in the game. It ended up being a really, really difficult second half." On building resilience in the team: "I am accountable.
Times Opinion: Let’s expel toxic right-wing politics from the Hamilton County Board of Education
Within national politics, we are living in a world dominated by a toxic political environment. While that is severely toned down at the local level, it does seep through into one realm: our schools.
Cologne wins Bundesliga relegation duel 3-1 against 10-man Werder Bremen
Cologne eased its Bundesliga relegation worries on Sunday with a 3-1 win over 10-man Werder Bremen that left the visiting team just outside the drop zone. Wagner has been handed the reins for the rest of the season after Cologne fired Lukas Kwasniok as coach on March 22.
Many La Jolla students win big at regional science fair
Nearly 30 kids attending local schools win first-place awards and five are named Grand Award winners or runners-up
Opinion: NASA flew by the moon, but behind the scenes, its science is a chaotic mess
Opinion: NASA flew by the moon, but behind the scenes, its science is a chaotic mess
Science & Medicine: Pain researchers have their eyes on ending chronic pain
A UT Health San Antonio researcher is working to map the nerves involved in jaw pain as part of a federally funded consortium aimed at developing the first targeted, non-opioid treatment for chronic pain, research he hopes will give millions of suffering Americans their lives back and ultimately reverse or even prevent pain in the first place.
Opinion: The rural health program isn't so transformational
Rural health care systems have been in crisis for decades, a situation that will become more dire when steep cuts to Medicaid kick in next year.
Kansas City small business needs uniform tobacco regulation across Missouri
When every municipality can impose its own rules, store owners are at the mercy of whichever way the political winds are blowing. | Opinion
‘Aggie docs’ coming to San Antonio’s South Side with new medical collaboration
Texas A&M medical students will begin clinical rotations at University Health’s Palo Alto Hospital and Vida clinic in 2028.
New Orleans all-metro girls basketball team headlined by state champion from John Curtis
A John Curtis senior headlines the 2026 New Orleans all-metro girls basketball team.
Sports Highlights
Chris Hayashi: Chris Hayashi, a senior on the Lake Oswego boys track team, put in one of the best efforts of the season during his team’s meet against Oregon City […]
How to watch the 2026 San Antonio Sports All-Star Basketball Game on April 12
More than 100 of the top high school basketball players in and around San Antonio will suit up on April 12.
Multiple people injured after mass shooting at New Jersey Chick-fil-A: report
Authorities are investigating a mass shooting at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Union, New Jersey.
Tribal and Rural Healthcare at Risk in Oklahoma Gov. Stitt’s Attack on Medicaid
Guest Opinion Oklahoma leaders often visit Cherokee Nation’s Health System and celebrate our progress and tout our unmistakable impact on the health and economy of rural communities. Now, Governor Stitt is putting us on a path that will damage that very system. Recently the Oklahoma legislature passed Oklahoma HB 4440 and HJR 1067 to reverse […]
Opinion: Science is recognizing the protective effects of religion
A new study suggests that religion and spirituality could be a component in preventing and recovering from addiction
Nikola Jokic, Nuggets can clinch No. 3 seed against Spurs
The Denver Nuggets have plenty for which to play when they visit the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday in the teams' regular-season finale.
Kids with heart defects soar on zip lines at University Health Kids Heart Camp
SAN ANTONIO - Kids battling some very serious health dificulties got the chance toTwo dozen children born with heart defects spent Saturday trying out the kind
ON THE JOB: “What is the Best Business Advice You’ve Ever Received?
Interviews by Deborah Jeanne Sergeant Sound advice can contribute to your success. We recently asked area business leaders, what was their best advice they’d ever received. Here’s what they said: “The best advice I ever received was from my then –boss, Gerry Church, Fulton plant manager at Miller Brewing Co. He told me that whenever I wanted to discuss a business problem or issue with him, I should also be prepared to offer possible solutions. It’s the difference between being proactive or reactive. It’s also the difference between being a leader or follower. That has served me well in any business relationship I have had since then.” — Stephen Chirello, Owner, Steve Chirello Advertising, Fulton “Someone will always do it for less; they will also take the most effort to service or satisfy and leave you for the next lower price.” — John M. Henry, Owner, Speedway Press, Mitchell Printing, Phoenix Press, Oswego “I’m going to answer this question by turning it around and giving my own advice that is, ‘Always treat every customer as if they were your only customer!’ We are celebrating our 50th anniversary in business this year. We started our business on March 25, 1976. My advice works.”” — Nick Chervinsky, President, Brewerton Pharmacy, Brewerton “’You need to toot your own horn, my grandfather, Howard D. Dice, told me.” — Beth Ann Dice, Women’s active aging and cancer recovery coach, Mission Movement Wellness Studio & Breast Cancer Recovery Studio, Fulton “In the micro enterprise class, they taught, ‘Get a good lawyer, accountant and bank.’ That was over 30 years ago and I still have those three today. I chose good people I could grow with.” — Tony Pauldine, Owner, Anthony M. Pauldine General Contractors Inc., Oswego “From my grandfather; ‘Listen to everyone! You never know where you will get the solution you need.’” — Kevin Dean, Executive director, Oswego County Opportunities, Fulton “‘Preparation is the mother of success.’ My dad always drilled that into my head growing up, and it has helped me avoid a lot of snags in both my personal and professional life. Thanks, Dad!” — Bekkah Frisch, Owner and president, iHeart Holdings, Inc., Fulton “If you don’t take a risk and try, you will never know.” — Justin Taber, Owner, Torbitt’s Service Center, Oswego “Be ready to take a loss.” — Cody Seymour, Manager, Damiano’s Eatery, Mexico “I’ve received so much good business advice over the years. When people are giving you advice, always be curious rather than judgmental. Follow your gut. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.” — Dana Decker, Principal owner/broker, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Oswego ’Do it and figure it out later.’ It hasn’t failed me yet. Too many people take time to think about doing this and this and this and then the opportunity is over with. If it’s somewhat reasonable — if it’s not something outrageous — do it and figure it out later.” — Jeremy Allen, Licensed real estate salesperson, Acropolis Realty Group, Syracuse “’Try to meet the needs of the customer. Treat them like you’d like to be treated.’ It’s like the Golden Rule says.” — Douglas Dickson, Physician and associate at CNY Foot Surgery and Podiatry Care, East Syracuse “The best piece of business advice I’ve ever received applies to life in general: always be honest. Never overstate your capabilities and always be willing to ask questions. The more specific you can be in any given topic will always lead to a better outcome.” — Tom Fernandez, President, Woodbine Hospitality, Syracuse “As a business owner, the advice would be ‘Don’t overextend yourself. Especially in agriculture, expect issues to come up.’ If something is going right, it’s not true agriculture. This last season, we scaled very hard to field another crew. We got more drones, crew and generators based on projections. This last season hit the ag community hard with a very wet spring. We did 15,000 to 20,000 acres for fungicide and the same for cover crop seeding in 2024. We scaled to 25,000 to 30,000 for 2025. We ended up doing 2,000 for fungicide and 3,000 for cover crop seeding. That’s why that advice was good.” — Rick Jordan, Operations manager, CNY Drove Services, Clinton “’Keep your head down, mind your own business and do the best for your clients that you can do.’ It has a lot to do with my success in working for Galloway Century 21.” — Ed Fayette, New York state licensed real estate agent, Century 21 Galloway, Oswego “’Expand in all ways, always.’ It just keeps you going and keeps you growing.” — Stephen Baier, Licensed real estate person, The Real Estate Agency & Bouck Commercial, Auburn “The best advice is, ‘Your biggest asset you won’t see on the books because it comes from your employees.’” — David Flickinger, Owner, Edible Arrangements, Syracuse “Don’t take things personally when you’re working with the public.” — Leeann Desimone, Manager, Annie’s Hallmark Shop, Auburn “‘Follow up.’ The customer knows that you care about what you are doing and that their opinion counts. Sometimes they might be on the fence about whether they want to use your company. If they’re asking your opinion on things, they feel you are concerned about what you’re doing. They like to be kept in the loop if they’re spending money with you.” — Dorothy Casper, Saslesperson, SweetWoods Memorials, Phoenix “The best business advice I received is ‘Never be the smartest person in the room. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.’ That’s how you learn.” — Debbie Bilello, Owner, Virtual Office Solutions, Central Square “’You need to grow your business but you can’t grow too big too fast.’ That’s what we’ve done at Pinnacle Maintenance. We’ve tried to grow but not too fast. Along those same lines, there’s another good piece of advice, ‘Don’t take on more than you can handle because it only leads to a bad name for your business and a bad experience for your customers.’ It goes along the same lines as growing your business slowly and carefully.” — David Wines, Owner, Pinnacle Maintenance, Central Square “Always be on time and do what you say you are going to do.’ I’ve done very well following that advice. Most of my work is referral and I don’t really do any advertising so I have a pretty good customer base. It’s mostly word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.” — Robert J. Fleming, Owner, Bob Fleming Windows & Doors, Brewerton “’Concentrate on your finances, always pay your taxes, and form a team you can depend on. Try to help the community you’re in as much as you can.’ We do all of these all the time here. We give and give and give to the community and the community gives back to us always.” — Susan Bonnet, Co-owner, Bonnet Sales and Service, Central Square “Keep smiling. It brings a positive attitude to the workplace.” — Karin Lindsley, Vice president, DTS Truck Service, Syracuse “‘Customer service above all.’ Following this advice has served us very well.’ — Guy Fox, Owner, Fox’s Discount Parts, West Monroe “The best thing to do is to make sure you’re taking in more money than you’re spending. I wish I could say I’m a good businessman but I have been in business since 1981. I’m not a bean counter but work well with my hands and its’s served me well all these years and I am still in business.” — Matt McGill, Owner, Matt McGill Collision, Brewerton
Seniors: Dennis Ouellette, 80
Ontario Orchards owner not slowing down as he grows his farm market By Stefan Yablonski The seeds for Dennis Ouellette’s career path were sown when he was 6 years old — and he isn’t slowing down. “Since age 6, I grew up an agriculturalist. That is 72 years. Started out with a 37-acre farm when I bought it from my parents and built it up to almost 300 acres. Brought it back down to around 200 acres now,” he said. The location of his business was just a barn, a horse barn, he said. “In 1967, it officially became Ontario Orchards Farm Market. My wife [June] and I graduated [high school] in 1964 and three years later we became Ontario Orchards. We have been here more than 60 years,” he explained. “It is the same location. We have expanded over the years as the customers mentioned different things; we have expanded to bring in different products. “What keeps me going is I totally enjoy what I am doing. I enjoy the people that I work with. The customers are wonderful. Mostly, more important than anything, is my family — my wife, my daughters, grandchildren, son-in-law — we are still very much a family business I’m not going to retire just yet.” He also enjoys the changing seasons. “Ontario Orchards is a four-season business. There is always something new; more energy, more interest. Not only for the business but for my staff, the people that work here. Things keep changing, changing. We are always looking forward to something new and exciting,” he said. They work with quite a number of local farmers within the area and throughout the state, throughout the country and from around the world.” “We do have things from different countries around the world. But specifically, we are very excited about the local. We have an over 200-acre farm. We sell just about everything we raise on that farm right here at the farm market. For example, we press cider year-round. We make baked goods every day, year-round. We sell our apples 12 months a year.” “Today, there are so many products in Ontario Orchards that we never would have thought of in 1967,” he continued. “I attribute a lot of that to my daughters. I like the young blood and new energy. That is very crucial to a business, it keeps it vibrant.” What’s his favorite part of the job? “I don’t have a favorite part. I enjoy it all. I have a lot of intertest in other things,” he said. “I have staff that knows so much. I can go to the staff and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, you tell me what this is.’ They are so knowledgeable. It is impossible for one person to know everything in this place. In the summer, staff is about 60; in the winter about 20, 25.” He added that he plans on being around for several more years.
Seniors: John Lemp, 70
Has been working for more than 50 years in the business — M. Lemp Jewelers in Syracuse — that his great-grandfather started in 1890 By Mary Beth Roach Don Lemp owns and represents the fourth-generation of the family business, M. Lemp Jewelers, but he still calls himself “a counter guy.” “I love interacting with couples. It’s a wonderful business. You’re celebrating marriages, engagements, births, anniversaries — all these different significant moments that people invite you into their lives for whatever brief period of time it might be to help them celebrate whatever their important occasion is,” he said. This is one of several reasons why Lemp, at 70, has been working for more than 50 years in the business that his great-grandfather started in 1890. Always located in the downtown Syracuse area, the store has been situated in the building that the family owns on East Fayette and Warren streets since 1971. He jokes that he’s been in the business so long he is now selling engagement rings to the second generation in some families. He also loves the opportunity to learn about the ever-changing industry and gemstones. “You have to know not only diamonds, but all the colored stones, from A to Z, from andalusite to zircons,” he said. Lemp said he had originally thought he wanted to become an attorney, but while working part-time in the store while attending college at Syracuse University, he decided to follow in the family business. His father, Walter D. Lemp Sr., and his mother tried to discourage their son from pursuing retail, reminding him of the hectic hours and lifestyle intrinsic in this business. But the younger Lemp [whose full name is Walter D. Lemp Jr.] prevailed. So, over the years, father and son got to work together in the family business for 35 years. And while many other jewelers retreated from downtown to suburban malls in the 1970s, the Lemps decided to stay downtown. And it’s a decision that Lemp Jr. feels it has worked out well. As he explained, downtown Syracuse is seeing a rebirth. One website, Point2Home.com, has noted that more than 6,000 people live there and the median income is about $62,000. In addition, according to the website that Lemp built years ago, the store can cater to customers throughout the country. His customers, whether from across the country or across Onondaga County, are just one reason that Lemp stays engaged in the business. His employees, the opportunity to continue to learn in an industry, and the challenge to continue to improve business are all other reasons, he noted. He’s also been able to travel to India to buy diamonds and he enjoys buying and selling estates. “I’d rather gallop in the corral than ride into the sunset,” Lemp said.
Seniors: Carol Watson, 72
Owner of Carol Watson Greenhouse and Landscaping in LaFayette enjoys her growing business — still puts in six-, seven-day weeks By Mary Beth Roach Carol Watson, the owner of Carol Watson Greenhouse and Landscaping, has been in gardens since she could walk. Literally. She said she learned to walk in her grandfather’s garden, which was next door to her current home and business in LaFayette. Today, at 72, she is running the business that her mother, Claire, opened in 1981 as Watson Greenhouse. Watson worked part-time for her mom until 1990, when she joined her full time. While she may not have had any formal horticultural experience, she said she learned so much about growing and raising plants from her mom, who had an abundance of energy and talent. Now, after 35 years in the business full time, Watson has no plans to retire, although she joked that she’d like a couple of days off a week. On her seven-acre site, complete with four greenhouses, Watson said her favorite parts of the job are working with and educating her customers; helping some of her young customers build terrariums; conducting occasional class field trips; and supporting local art by decorating the shop with an eclectic mix of pottery from at least four area craftspeople. A one-time employee of the former Dey Bros. department store in Syracuse, Watson said she loves merchandising and enjoys displaying unique pieces of art on shelves and even suspending from ceilings. “We’re creative. We also had top quality plants. We got a reputation of quality plants and unusual products,” she said. It’s tending to her customers and her plants, showcasing the unusual products, and hosting special events to benefit the community that keep her motivated to work six to seven days a week. “I just love it. I love taking care of the plants. I’m one of the few people that really enjoys watering,” she said. And while she has cultivated a solid customer base over the years, she remains savvy in her marketing efforts to draw in new customers. For example, she does a gardening segment on CNY Central television; her active Facebook page has thousands of followers; and she hosts a number of unique events and classes that not only introduce her shop to potential new clients, but some benefit nonprofits as well. About 13 years ago, when the local symphony orchestra was struggling, she said she wanted to help. So, partnering with the group, she began offering concerts, called Soirees, featuring the Syracuse Orchestra’s string quartet. Following up on a suggestion from a customer whose brother is a deejay in retirement, specializing in sock hops, she hosted the greenhouse’s first sock hop. Plants got moved back toward the walls to make room for dancing; a caterer was brought in, offering diner-like food; guests came in period outfits; and proceeds went to the Food Bank of CNY. She is excited about doing it again in October. Via her website, she promotes the greenhouse as an “oasis in the snow,” offering visitors the opportunity to pick up some decorating and gift ideas while taking in the floral and citrus scents. And she also caters to her four-legged friends. Over this past winter, she said, she came up with a “brilliant idea,” although at the time she didn’t appreciate just how brilliant it would become. Feeling it too cold outside to take her dog for a walk, she opted to bring it into the greenhouse. And before long, she was inviting people to bring their dogs into the big greenhouse as well. She looks forward to extending that invitation again this upcoming winter season. For Watson and her customers, the greenhouse is always in season.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
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