SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " tel " 17,631 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
What to stream: ‘The Dink,’ ‘Stuart Fails to Save the Universe’
Charli xcx's new album and a pickleball movie starring Jake Johnson are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.
AMF Launches Refreshed Identity After 126 Years of Bowling
AMF welcomes approximately 10.4 million guests annually across more than 80 locations; additional identity updates will roll out over time.
Survey of business and tech leaders reveals persistent gap between corporate AI adoption and workforce readiness
/PRNewswire/ -- A large majority of workers use artificial intelligence (AI) tools regularly, but few consider themselves highly familiar with the technology,...
Rice joins Department of Energy’s Quantum Science Center
Rice has joined the U.S. Department of Energy Quantum Science Center.
Advancing next-gen AI with materials science innovation
As artificial intelligence pushes semiconductors and data centers to new physical limits, advances in materials science are becoming essential to sustaining the pace of innovation.
ZZ Top, Fetty Wap among 25 shows booked at new Satellite Music Hall
As the September opening of Satellite Music Hall gets closer, the Memphis venue's concert calendar continues to grow.
MAGA candidates keep losing in Arizona. Andy Biggs is out to break the trend
The fronrunner for the GOP nomination for governor hopes he fares better than MAGA-aligned Blake Masters and Kari Lake did in their recent statewide contests.
Beyond weight loss: Lilly aims for leadership in brain science
Lilly’s neuroscience chief discusses the large pharma’s aims in brain science, and how diagnostics and dosing are driving its next advancements in Alzheimer’s.
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
When US troops die, Trump often reaches quickly for politics
The Iran war has now seen the first US troop deaths since March, with the announcements that three service members have died in recent days.
Private investment in youth sports draws state, federal scrutiny
Courtney Hamby and her husband spend close to $6,000 per year for their daughter Ellie’s cheer and tumbling classes, competition fees and uniforms. That doesn’t include their travel expenses for multiple out-of-town competitions, including hotel rooms, gas, meals, and sometimes even flights. “This should be something that everyone gets to play, and it shouldn’t be […]
Scientists discover sugar in interstellar space
The first detection of sugar in the interstellar medium could shed more light on how life began on Earth
FDA issues recall of portable imaging systems
A notice from the agency indicates that systems that have had column replacements might not function appropriately afterward and could pose patient harm.
Why Trump and Mamdani might both welcome a fight over Netanyahu
President Donald Trump’s approval ratings may be sliding, but one political super sense is as sharp as ever: picking a fight with an adversary he casts as the entire Democratic Party.
Stinespring tells RVSC Maroons must stay hungry
The Roanoke College head football coach spoke at the Roanoke Valley Sports Club Monday night.
Shanghai science forum photos show China's AI and robotics advances in rivalry with US
BEIJING (AP) — China's leading technology companies showcased hundreds of cutting-edge products at the World AI Conference in Shanghai — from advanced robotics to artificial intelligence systems.
Photos show Chinese companies showcasing AI technology and robots at science forum
BEIJING (AP) — China's leading technology companies showcased hundreds of cutting-edge products at the World AI Conference in Shanghai — from advanced robotics to artificial intelligence systems.
Maine Democratic Senate frontrunner faces scrutiny over alleged anger outbursts
Troy Jackson’s brash conduct raises alarm bells about his temperament as the nominee for a key Senate race, some critics said.
Margaritaville Ball Drop 2027 Gala Megawatt Entertainment
Welcome NYE 2027, view the ball drop at a tropical paradise gala at Margaritaville Times Square Hotel, a family-friendly event with VIP amenities
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.
AI political ads draw scrutiny in the Tennessee 6th Congressional District race
AI Political Ads in Tennessee's 6th Congressional race raise questions about a state AI Disclosure Law as Johnny Garrett and Van Hilleary use artificial intelligence in campaign videos.
White House rushes to further secure Trump’s new Air Force One — but he plans to keep flying it domestically
The White House is working to quickly upgrade the Qatari-donated jet that has newly started serving as Air Force One, a development that comes after administration officials internally discussed the need for President Donald Trump to avoid flying it in high-threat areas, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Proposed changes to Protect College Sports Act would allow conference expansion -- with a catch
As negotiations on the college sports bill intensify ahead of a possible floor vote on the Senate floor later this month, sources tell CBS Sports that Power Four leagues would still have a pathway to expand
Sen. Darline Graham running for full Senate term after being appointed to Lindsey Graham’s seat
Sen. Darline Graham announced that she will run for her late brother’s seat this November, after being appointed last week to serve out the rest of Lindsey Graham’s term.
How the Iran war’s unpopularity compares to Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam
An increasing volume of data suggests the Iran war has become about as unpopular as Iraq and Vietnam ever were — and it became so much more quickly.
Jeff Arcuri On Katie Thurston Cancer, Netflix Special
Jeff Arcuri talks his wife Katie Thurston's cancer battle and telling that story in his debut Netflix special on the 'Comedy Means Business' podcast.
Mysterious 'little red dots' at the beginning time may finally have an explanation, thanks to newfound 'little blue companions'
Astronomers may have found an unexpected origin for the mysterious "little red dots" that appear to be so common in James Webb Space Telescope surveys of the early universe.
Intel Xeon 6 Leaps To 8000 MT/s Memory Now, But The Real Payoff Waits For 8800 MT/s MRDIMM In 2027
Intel introduces 8000 MT/s DDR5 RDIMMs for Xeon 6 CPUs, boosting memory speed by 25% and offering a 20% increase in total memory bandwidth.
Modern Warfare 4: Open Beta, NEXT, Fanatics Fest, & Serialized Camo
Relive Modern Warfare® 4 at Fanatics Fest, get Open Beta and Call of Duty®: NEXT intel, plus Nintendo® Switch 2 pre-order details and a first-of-its-kind Serialized Weapon Camo pre-order challenge.
Hackers are exploiting recently patched WordPress bugs, putting millions of websites at risk
Two critical security flaws in WordPress’ software have given hackers the chance to remotely take over tens of millions of websites, according to an estimate by a cybersecurity researcher.
This Week: Muni 1 Bus Improvements, Car Free Happy Hour, SF Politics 101
Here is a list of events this week. Tuesday Park Presidio and California Evening Pop-Up. This SFMTA project aims to improve the Muni 1 California bus route from 33rd Avenue to Steiner Street. Come learn about it. Tuesday, July 21, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Corner of Park Presidio and California, S.F. Tuesday East Bay Car Free Happy Hour. Whether you’re car free, car light, car free curious, or just want to hang out with fun people and have nerdy urbanist conversations, everyone is welcome. Tuesday, July 21, 5:30-7 p.m., Drake’s Dealership, 2325 Broadway, Oakland. Wednesday SF Politics 101 with Joel Engardio. SF Politics 101 is an entertaining look at how local politics work and the history that shaped San Francisco — brought to life with visuals and narrative storytelling. Wednesday, July 22, 6-7:15 p.m., SPUR Urban Center, 654 Mission Street, S.F. Friday Woman and Non-Binary Morning Ride. Join the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for a socially distanced bike ride for women and nonbinary cyclists. Friday, July 24, 7:15-8:45 a.m., McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan Street, S.F. Saturday Smart City Cycling 3 — Road Practice. In this class, you’ll go on a guided group ride to practice street-riding skills on increasingly high-volume streets. This class is the third in the Smart City Cycling sequence, and Smart City Cycling 2: Maneuvering is a prerequisite. Saturday, July 25, 10 a.m.-12 p.m., Arguello Extension, Arguello Blvd and Lincoln Way, S.F. Sunday Adult & Teen Learn-to-Ride Workshop. This three-hour workshop is for adults and teens who have not yet learned to ride a bike or would like a refresher on the basics of balancing, pedaling, and steering. Sunday, July 26, Alameda Waterfront Park, 2151 Ferry Point, Alameda. Got an event we should know about? Drop us a line.
I Tried 2 Budget Smart Telescopes: How They Make the Stars Your New Hobby
Getting an affordable smart telescope, like the Dwarf Mini or Seestar S30, is easier and more rewarding than I thought.
Reporter Claims Game Pass Is 'Absolutely Detested' By Some Xbox Studio Leaders
Could it change in the future?
‘Vibecoded’ Apps Are Flooding Apple’s App Store
Mobile apps are easy to make with artificial intelligence. That doesn’t mean people are excited to use them.
New grant to improve discovery of potential diagnostic, therapeutic molecules
Carly Schissel, assistant professor of chemistry, is part of a multi-institution team that has been selected to receive funding from the Scialog: Automating Chemical Laboratories initiative. The initiative supports teams of early-career scientists doing fundamental science to accelerate advances in laboratory technologies using automation and artificial intelligence.
Maid Brigade Leadership Summit Highlights AI Innovation, Business Growth and Franchise Excellence
Maid Brigade franchise owners from across North America gathered July 16-18 at The Source Hotel in Denver for the 2026 Maid Brigade Leadership Summit, where they explored innovative business strategies, shared best practices and celebrated franchise excellence.
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
Bluehost Expands AI Business Platform with New Simple-to-Use AI & Agentic Solutions Purpose-Built for Small Business
Today, Bluehost, the all-in-one platform trusted by millions of small businesses to build, grow, and run online, today unveiled its next-generation AI business platform for small businesses, introducing intelligent AI agents that can build websites, run online stores, capture leads, answer customer questions, and book appointments, all without requiring technical expertise. The solutions are purpose-built for small business needs, giving entrepreneurs the capabilities of a much larger business w
Sorry, the 90s are officially vintage now
True vintage products are moderately aged, iconic, and scarce, according to new research from Columbia Business School that defines vintage style.
Switch 2 modding scene makes new breakthrough, but Nintendo safe from piracy
A new breakthrough was recently made within the Switch 2 modding scene, but Nintendo can rest easy knowing that piracy still isn’t an issue at the moment. You may remember that with the original Nintendo Switch, piracy became a major problem pretty early on. Significant vulnerabilities were discovered less than a year after the console launch. Nintendo was unfortunately unable...
Live coverage: SpaceX to launch 24 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg SFB
The Starlink 17-39 mission is SpaceX’s 85th Falcon 9 rocket launch of the year. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base is scheduled for 7:36 a.m. PDT (10:36 a.m. EDT / 1436 UTC).
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
The rise of ‘safety fatigue’ among parents
Does social media blame you for all the ways you should protect your kids? Welcome to the rise of parental ““safety fatigue.”
Breitling Launches A Top Time Trio Paying Tribute To The Aston Martin DB5
✓ Breitling introduces three Top Time B01 Chronograph Limited Editions ✓ Paying tribute to the Aston Martin DB5 ✓ Check them out here! ✓
AI Researcher Receives $745K Bits to Bytes Award from Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to Create the World’s Largest Annotated Spleen Ultrasound Dataset
Principal Investigator (PI) Daniel Haehn, PhD, director of UMass Boston’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Core Facility and an associate professor of computer science, will lead SPLEEN-US: Open Annotated Spleen Ultrasound Dataset for Precision Neuromodulation.
Little bottles are becoming a big business for booze
As drinkers cut back, the future for big booze might be smaller — literally.
Six AMC theaters showed THE ODYSSEY for more than 85 hours
THE ODYSSEY's media-reported domestic gross reached approximately $124M; Rotten Tomatoes scores were 95% from critics and 97% from audiences. Ticket information is online.
World Cup fuels Broward's summer business and hotel boom
Thank you to the Tartan Army and all of the international fans!
World Cup boosted Miami businesses, showcased its diversity
Some bars and hotels felt a World Cup bump.
Cleveland Browns 2026 training camp position preview: Offensive line
The Browns open training camp with a completely new offensive line. Here's a look at the position group.
WAIC explainer: What is AI for Science?
What if artificial intelligence (AI) could help scientists make discoveries never before imagined?That's one of the themes at this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. It's called AI for Science. Simply put, it means using
Trump’s funding cuts created ‘the perfect storm’ that slowed the government’s cyclosporiasis response
The government’s reaction to the cyclospora outbreak has been undermined by massive budget and staffing cuts under President Donald Trump, CNN has found – including nearly funding that disappeared when Trump axed the US Agency for International Development.
Gas prices back at $4 a gallon
The average price US drivers pay for gas hit $4 a gallon on Monday, only the second time it has reached that benchmark since the war in Iran disrupted global oil supplies.
‘Shrimad Bhagavatam’ Anchors Sagar Pictures Entertainment’s Global Push, Indian Studio Confirms (EXCLUSIVE)
Sagar Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has confirmed the launch of a global studio business, moving beyond film and television production into an intellectual property-led growth strategy spanning gaming,...
Joint statement from Monaco Sports Group, Citroën Racing, Stellantis
Monaco Sports Group (MSG), operator of the Citroën Racing Formula E Team, Citroën, Stellantis Motorsport, the FIA, and the entire Formula E community are deeply saddened to confirm the passing of
AI may predict harmful chemical exposures affecting human health
Artificial intelligence is rapidly improving scientists' ability to detect chemicals in the environment and human body.
🎥 Bad loser? World Cup star completely loses the plot
Well, what on earth happened there? Shortly after the final whistle of the World Cup final, which Spain had won 1–0 after extra time, some pretty wild scenes unfolded on the pitch.During a mass con...
Usha Vance gives birth to fourth child, vice president announces
Second lady Usha Vance has given birth to her fourth child, Vice President JD Vance announced Sunday.
Truthfully The Fallout I’m Most Looking Forward To Is Fan-Made
As Xbox tries to quell critics by replaying the hits, it’s a fan-made game that has me optimistic for the wasteland
Apple's scrapped Mac Pro plans reportedly included a new Intel model
A new report reveals Apple developed two unreleased Mac Pro models before discontinuing the line, including one powered by Intel.
Xbox Says More Exclusives Are Coming But Tells Players Not to 'Overly Fixate on Single-Player' Games
Executives at Xbox have once again attempted to clarify the company's approach to exclusives, promising that "Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are not the only titles" it's planning.
Shohei Ohtani to Miss Phillies Start, Pitching Return Delayed Indefinitely
Shohei Ohtani will no longer make his scheduled start against the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday. The Los Angeles Dodgers two-way superstar reported to the team’s training staff that his knee irritation was not progressing as he expected. Ahead of the Dodgers’ doubleheader against the New York Yankees on Sunday, manager Dave Roberts told reporters that […] The post Shohei Ohtani to Miss Phillies Start, Pitching Return Delayed Indefinitely appeared first on LA Sports Report.
Why I Agreed to Lead the UAP Science Advisory Council for the U.S. Government
A month and a half ago, I was visited by a representative from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He raised a…
The World Cup final is finally here as Spain and Argentina face off in an epic clash of styles
Live updates: Spain and Argentina meet in the World Cup final. Follow along for the latest.
Telemundo adds UEFA Champions League rights in multiyear deal
With a record-breaking World Cup drawing to a close on Sunday, Telemundo is announcing its next step in soccer broadcasting. The NBCUniversal-owned network announced on Sunday that it has secured exclusive U.S. Spanish-language broadcast rights for all UEFA men’s club competitions, including Champions League, for three years beginning with the 2027-28 season. Currently, U.S. Spanish-language…
Shohei Ohtani drops out of Dodgers' pitching rotation indefinitely while left knee continues to recover
Voyager 1 is still crossing interstellar space with six computers holding about 68 kilobytes of memory between them — less storage than a single compressed photograph on a modern phone
Voyager 1 carries six flight-computer units designed in the early 1970s, and NASA’s own accounting puts their combined memory at about 68 kilobytes. That is
The New York Times’s magazone on “How to be cultured” completely neglects science
I used to pride myself on being “cultured”—knowing not only science but a decent amount about literature, art, the other humanities, and so on (about classical music, however, I’m…
Sen. Fetterman on Democrats’ position on Israel: It’s getting ‘more incredibly hostile towards Israel.’
In 1970, Soviet scientists began drilling into the Kola Peninsula and eventually reached 12,262 metres — creating the deepest vertical borehole humans have ever made, yet barely scratching the surface of Earth’s crust
I had always filed the Kola Superdeep Borehole under facts that sound impressive but do not tell you much: the Soviet Union drilled 12,262 meters into the
Why do we need a nasty parasite to remind us public health matters?
Food experts tell me that federal cuts might not have directly impacted detection of this outbreak, but it could make it harder to learn from this one.
iPhone 18 Pro Pricing Can Dominate Market And Start A New Super Cycle
The launch of the iPhone 18 Pro will also see Apple introduce new Apple Intelligence and Siri AI features, igniting a super cycle of sales.
'It's absolutely exciting!': Astronomers discover an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone for first time ever
Astronomers have detected helium escaping from the super-Earth LHS 1140 b, providing the strongest evidence yet that a rocky planet in another star's habitable zone has retained an atmosphere for billions of years.
The mysterious hum heard around the world may finally have an explanation
The mysterious sound known as The Hum has been reported worldwide for decades, yet its source often remains impossible to find. Researchers tested whether people who hear it have exceptional low-frequency hearing or measurable sounds produced inside their ears, but neither explanation fit most participants. The strongest possibility is that many cases involve low-frequency tinnitus, even though the sound seems completely external.
5 Lifestyle Changes I Made After Learning I Have a High Alzheimer’s Risk
A mom of three, Elena Castellanos recently learned just how much power over her health she really has.
Beyond rockets and satellites, SpaceX is quietly building an AI compute business that may become key to its eye-popping valuation
Deals with Google and Anthropic to rent out computing capacity could generate $26 billion a year.
Google and Apple are clashing with the EU over the future of AI assistants
Google and Apple have a big leg up in the AI race: their control of billions of smartphones around the world.
Bernie blowback: How Sanders’ primary endorsements have sparked a Democratic midterm war
Sen. Bernie Sanders had just announced his intent to unseat a sitting House Democrat — this time, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus from North Carolina — when Rep. Hakeem Jeffries decided it was time to confront Sanders himself.
Why the Trump effect is different in 2026 than 2018
The brightest warning light for Democrats in this year’s election is the consistent finding in early national and state polls that they are not winning nearly as large a share of voters who disapprove of President Donald Trump’s performance as they did during his first term. Paradoxically, that dynamic could represent a major danger for Republicans if it proves unsustainable through November.
Volcanic Ash: Politics set on the extremes bring only extreme tensions
One of the most personally disturbing stories I’ve read lately was about a California state senator with a long record of supporting transgender people being run out of San Francisco’s annual Trans March by a small group of agitators who falsely accused him of endorsing genocide in Gaza.
James Webb telescope uses trippy Einstein prediction to probe the farthest reaches of the universe — Space photo of the week
The James Webb telescope peers through a warped bubble of space-time to study galaxies from the first billion years after the Big Bang.
AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 5:58 a.m. EDT
Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami, US Marshals Service tells AP
iOS 26 vs iOS 27: How Apple Is Completely Replacing Siri With Next-Gen AI
Comparing iOS 27 vs iOS 26 reveals faster app launches by up to 30% and an 80% quicker AirDrop. See the new full-page widgets and liquid glass slider.
Mavs match Knicks' two-year, $4.7M offer to Moussa Cisse
The Dallas Mavericks have matched the New York Knicks' two-year, $4.7 million offer sheet on restricted free agent Moussa Cisse, Yann Balikouzou and Kevin Bradbury of LIFT Sports Management tell ESPN.
Eagles Can Only Trade Jalen Carter Under One Condition
If the Philadelphia Eagles planned to trade Jalen Carter, though I don't want to say that it absolutely would be the worst move ever, I think it's important to recognize that first-round picks and draft assets aren't always as promising as they seem.
Troy Jackson, a former Graham Platner ally, well-positioned to win Maine Democrats’ nomination against Sen. Susan Collins
Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson has built an overwhelming advantage in the short and unusual contest to replace Graham Platner and take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a must-win race for Democrats in their bid for control of the US Senate.
Mamdani says he’s still looking into arresting Netanyahu if Israeli leader visits New York
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his office is still looking into arresting Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Daiyan Henley Should Be Ready to Prove Doubters Wrong
Daiyan Henley was completely left off ESPN’s top linebacker rankings, but the Chargers star has everything needed to make the doubters regret it. With another big season ahead, don’t be surprised if he’s impossible to ignore by this time next year.
Larry David seemingly tells RFK Jr. to ‘drop dead’ in new episode of HBO series: ‘You’re not a doctor’
Did Larry David’s character just tell former friend RFK Jr. to ‘drop dead’ in his new show? Here’s what happened.
Two US service members killed, one missing following Iranian strikes in Jordan
Two US service members were killed and one is missing in action, US Central Command announced Saturday, marking the first American military deaths in the Iran war since March.
WordPress Core "wp2shell" RCE flaws get public exploits, patch now
Public exploits have been released for the critical "wp2shell" remote code execution vulnerabilities affecting WordPress Core, making it imperative that administrators patch their sites immediately.
Health experts say to mask up amid wildfire smoke
Health experts say to mask up amid wildfire smoke
Nara Smith says 2-year-old-daughter Whimsy's cancer is in remission
The content creator, known for making elaborate meals while wearing glamorous ensembles, tells her TikTok and Instagram followers that she and her husband have spent the last eight months processing their daughter’s health battle.
Ralph Norman announces he’ll enter race to succeed Lindsey Graham in Senate
Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina announced on Saturday he will run to replace Lindsey Graham in the Senate.
The great Netflix turn-off
Music fans will be familiar with the curse of the difficult second album, when an act they like follows up a wonderful debut record with a disappointing one (think Second Coming by the Stones Roses or...