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Santa Cruz County business filings: Week of Aug. 4

Businesses operating in Santa Cruz County must register with the county clerk. Lookout Santa Cruz reviews the public filings from local businesses to report on new businesses starting in the area.

Aug 4 • 2:18 PM EDT • Business • lookout.co

‘I did not steal’: Jacksonville businesses accuse influencer of taking money without delivering. He denies it

A social media influencer accused by Jacksonville-area businesses of taking money for food reviews and failing to deliver what they expected is pushing back against the allegations, saying he never stole from anyone and that some of the claims against him are false.

Aug 4 • 12:12 PM EDT • Business • news4jax.com

MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?

(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “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.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.

Aug 4 • 11:55 AM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

This Action Comedy Has a 97% Rotten Tomatoes Score (and Hardly Anyone's Talking About It)

This action-comedy series is flying under the radar despite earning rave reviews from critics and viewers. With a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, hilarious performances, and plenty of twists, it's the binge-worthy show you'll want to watch. Find out more here.

Aug 4 • 11:29 AM EDT • Entertainment • purewow.com

Holland & Knight Health Dose: August 4, 2026 | Insights

Holland & Knight's Health Dose reviews Senate funding negotiations, CMS payment rules, FDA actions, HRSA's 340B pilot and key healthcare policy developments.

Aug 4 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • hklaw.com

Fact-checking Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens' claims ahead of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary

Michigan Democrats will pick their nominee for the U.S. Senate on Aug. 4 in a battle dominated by views on U.S.-Israel relations and the Democratic Party’s future.

Aug 3 • 5:35 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

If Not AOC, Then Who?

What do we do if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decides not to run for president in 2028? It makes sense that many leftists are currently focused on calling on her to take the plunge. But the absence of a Plan B, or even much discussion about one, is worrisome. The US Left can’t afford to sit out the 2028 Democratic primary. Doing so in 2024 was a disaster: our abstention self-marginalized anti-billionaire politics from the national conversation and thereby gave space for Harris to pivot to the “center” (i.e. the policy preferences of corporate donors, establishment hacks, and AIPAC). Abstaining again in 2028 would be especially counterproductive since democratic socialists now have so much wind in our sails after our big electoral wins in NYC and across the country. It’s time to deepen our momentum, organization, and profile — not to retreat to the margins during America’s single most important political battle. Even more urgently, keeping Trump’s heir out of the White House may depend on whether leftists and the party’s unprecedentedly disenchanted base can force the Democrats in 2028 to take meaningful steps towards a very angry electorate and away from the corporate-consultant blob that has helped get us into this mess. If AOC (or Abdul El-Sayed) decides to run, we should enthusiastically go all in — DSA, fighting unions, progressive organizations, anybody who wants to see a better country and world. But, as far as I can tell from the outside, there’s a real chance that she doesn’t run. And we can’t just wait and see where she lands before discussing alternatives, since AOC’s decision might not come for quite a while, giving us little time to scramble at the last minute for an alternative. So we should start working now on getting a Plan B into motion, and recruiting a good candidate for the role. Here’s one idea. A Worker Candidate — Healthcare Not Warfare 2028 Run a union worker Leftists don’t need to always run experienced, well-known socialist politicians for high-profile contests. Lula, the current president of Brazil, began his political career as a metalworker militant who ran for governor of São Paulo in 1982. Especially in an era of institutional distrust, it’s possible to lean hard into making a virtue out of a working-class comrade’s distance from traditional politics. Experience abroad shows this clearly. Rachel Kéké — an immigrant hotel housekeeper — ran as the candidate of the leftist La France Insoumise for the National Assembly in 2022, defeating a former minister in the Macron government. The Belgian Workers’ Party in 2024 won its first Flemish seat in the European Parliament by running Rudi Kennes, a three-decade veteran of the Opel Antwerp auto factory. And the South Korean left in 2024 elected auto factory militant Yoon Jong-oh to the National Assembly. If a tiny French Trotskyist organization could make such a big splash in 2002 and 2007 by running a well-spoken postal worker cadre for office — the LCR’s Olivier Besancenot received about 1.5 million first-round votes — it’s not far-fetched to expect that a much larger organization like DSA, together with a broader coalition of the willing, could run this playbook to much greater effect. This is especially the case now that almost everything DSA does immediately becomes a national news story. We don’t need someone famous. We just need a charismatic, well-vetted comrade who works in a relatable working-class occupation — e.g. a nurse, or a worker in auto or construction, or at Amazon. Ideally, they have a compelling personal story or have been part of a significant strike or organizing campaign, but even those criteria don’t necessarily have to be deal-breakers. The main lesson of the Graham Platner fiasco isn’t that we should never run outsiders for office (the momentum he generated proves the exact opposite), but that they need proper vetting and roots in democratic membership organizations like DSA or a union. In any case, there are plenty of ways to signal working-class authenticity without resorting to Platner’s or Fetterman’s performative macho white dude affect. Better to have someone of any gender or race who is actually working class, with firm socialist politics, who can speak from experience about the day-to-day realities of trying to make it in America. There are surely at least a dozen such worker leaders in our movement nationwide; we just need to sit down and convince one that their personal sacrifice for the greater good (i.e. running for president) will be worth it. If we don’t have a frontrunner with a clear path to victory like AOC (or El-Sayed, were he to win Michigan), it’s better to embrace someone whose decision to run in itself tells an important story about US politics: workers have been iced out of our political system and are now fighting hard to break back in. The novelty factor, in itself, would generate press. And it would help democratic socialists signal to the American public that our movement’s defining characteristic is that we represent workers vs. bosses, not that we’re “the furthest left” force in American politics — a framework that suggests we’re extremists and that helps our opponents isolate us from non-college-educated voters by highlighting extremely minoritarian (and misguided) stances included in DSA’s platform like prison abolition. We don’t get many opportunities to speak to tens of millions of Americans; we need to use these opportunities to broaden our appeal beyond those already in our orbit. Run to polarize the 2028 primary and general election around “Medicare for All” and “End All Aid to Israel” Why should democratic socialists use our scarce time and volunteer energy to run in a race we’re unlikely to win? Running in the 2028 primary will not only recruit us scores of members (imagine having a DSA member intervening in eleven nationally televised primary debates!), but — more importantly — it has the potential to be a decisive leap forward towards an America that finally starts meeting the needs of working people instead of HMO and AIPAC billionaire donors. Polarizing litmus tests are good, actually — as long as they’re fought for around popular demands in a thoughtful and strategic way. Democratic socialists have an opportunity and responsibility to make the 2028 primary about two of the most widely and deeply felt issues of our moment: domestically, America’s unaffordable, family-breaking private healthcare system; internationally, America’s bankrolling of the genocidal Israeli government. A candidacy relentlessly demanding Medicare for All and No Aid to Israel would pose a sharp question to the American public, the Democratic Party, and other 2028 contenders: Why can’t working-class Americans afford their healthcare bills at the same time that our government is spending at least $3.8 billion yearly to fund an Israeli regime eager to keep dragging us and the world into more forever wars? Our candidate can agitate around a clear message: I’m running to give voice to all those working-class Americans who are struggling to get by. No matter what state you live in, who you voted for in 2024, or your background, it’s just plain common sense that we should make healthcare more affordable instead of spending billions to enable the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity. Every American who agrees with me when I say ‘Medicare for All — Not a Dime for Israel’ should make their voice heard through our campaign. Racking up a high number of votes for this agenda is a crucial way to show the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that we can’t keep supporting a life-destroying status quo in our healthcare system and in the Middle East. If we want to defeat Trump’s handpicked crony this coming November, we need to speak to ordinary people’s frustrations with the status quo — we can’t keep running the same tired establishment playbook and expecting a different result. For those highly engaged voters (or skeptical media pundits) who raise concerns about wasting votes, the candidate can take the time to explain why this isn’t the case: It's true I'm a long shot. But Zohran showed anything can happen — and voting for me is a pragmatic decision, not a wasted vote. In a heavily divided primary with a large number of candidates and a very discredited establishment, my campaign and the democratic socialist movement I’m part of are positioned to be the balance of power if we can get a large enough number of voters to loudly demand Healthcare Not Warfare. Since there’s a high chance no candidate will get to 50% in the 2028 primaries, the Democrats could very well be heading towards a brokered convention, where a disciplined, principled current committed to breaking from corporate donors can play an outsized role in making sure whoever ends up with the nomination raises the banner of single-payer healthcare and cutting aid to Israel. How exactly could running this sort of primary campaign be translated into actual leverage? The candidate replies: I’m aiming to win the nomination, but if I don’t achieve that goal, my delegates and I will pledge our support in the primary only for a candidate who agrees in the general election to call for ending US aid to Israel and establishing Medicare for All at home. These are both winning planks for November against the Republicans, and the only reason I can see that other candidates haven’t yet raised these is that they’re still more scared of the donor class than they are of the people. That needs to change. If Democratic leaders want young people, workers, and those sick of the status quo to show up in big numbers this November, they need to meet us halfway. In this way, whether or not we win the nomination, democratic socialists could still play a decisive role in 2028. The approach outlined here is similar to what radical left parties periodically do in parliamentary democracies like Denmark or Sweden when they find themselves as a junior partner electorally: they dictate to center-left allies what their terms would be for enabling, from the outside, the formation of a new government. Running a Healthcare Not Warfare candidate will make it significantly more likely that the 2028 Democratic candidate stands with ordinary people instead of donors on these two pivotal planks — a shift that will, in turn, make it easier to achieve the existentially important task of defeating MAGA’s heir in November. Look at how much popular traction the Uncommitted movement got with a similar strategy in 2024 with so little on-the-ground organization — surely we can go much further with a working-class candidate, a much bigger DSA, and a Democratic Party base that has turned against Israel, billionaires, and the hacks in the party who prop them up. Objections and Responses There are quite a few objections to this proposal, many of which are very reasonable. Let me briefly address each here. Socialists shouldn’t waste their scarce time and resources on a candidate unlikely to win. This is a good rule in general, but there are important exceptions, and presidential elections are the main one. There’s no other political contest that gets anything like this level of attention and engagement in the US, so if you want to be a serious force in nationwide politics, you basically can’t afford not to have a candidate. Far from being an overall drain on our resources, running a dynamic 2028 campaign would likely result in a major net increase in members and capacity. In that spirit, the very pragmatic Milwaukee sewer socialists — who mostly ran to win at home in Wisconsin — supported Eugene Debs’s propagandistic presidential campaigns, which they correctly saw as a crucial means of recruiting to the Socialist Party. And now that the (post-1972) Democratic Party gives more weight to voters than party operatives in determining its presidential nomination, it’s become feasible to run as a socialist in primaries without risking a split in the vote against the Republicans in November. We should just support Ro Khanna, who also supports M4A and ending aid to Israel. I like Ro Khanna and would enthusiastically vote and canvass for him for president were he to get the nomination. But there’s a real chance that Khanna’s bid for office doesn’t catch on; he lacks the grassroots organizational apparatus of DSA, and, because he’s not really of the Left or labor (despite his current very good positions), he’s unlikely to generate the type of buy-in and enthusiasm that a DSA candidate would. Moreover, Khanna would be running as an individual, not as someone emerging from and building an organized movement — his campaign would not likely focus on building sustained power from below, nor would it likely polarize the 2028 primary around M4A and Israel aid. Also, and not inconsequentially, the poor electoral results for Tom Steyer and Saikat Chakrabarti this spring suggest that there’s perhaps not much of a popular appetite in the Democrats’ base to support multi-millionaire class traitors. Much better, then, to run a democratic socialist worker. If by Super Tuesday it’s clear that our campaign has captured the main left lane in the primary, Khanna should drop out and endorse us; conversely, if he’s managed to capture this lane, DSA could at that point transform its Healthcare Not Warfare campaign into an independent campaign to elect Ro Khanna focused on winning (and holding him accountable to) those two critical planks. An openness to consolidating an anti-corporate candidate by Super Tuesday is a necessary component of the strategy I’m proposing, because otherwise we risk splitting the primary votes (per DNC rules, you need at least 15% to get any delegates to convention). We should convince Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson to run for president instead. I agree it’d be great if either ran for president, but my impression is that there’s basically no chance that will happen in 2028, because both are firmly focused on their union leadership duties (and, in the case of Fain, beating back a federal witch-hunt). This plan could have DSA end up endorsing a non-socialist, non-DSAer for president. That’s against our principles. It’s a myth, and bad politics, that socialists can’t ever support candidates who aren’t members of their organization and/or who don’t call themselves socialists. Bernie, after all, was not a DSAer. And socialists abroad regularly make tactical decisions about if and when supporting a non-socialist candidate makes sense from the standpoint of promoting working-class interests, defending democracy, and building a socialist current in the process. If your “principles” prevent you and DSA from helping achieve the momentous stride forward of having a Democratic candidate in 2028 run on Medicare for All and ending aid to Israel, those “principles” are not very good. In fact, they actively undermine the causes they’re aiming to support. We shouldn’t confuse principles (working-class independence) with tactics (the best way to advance this in a given context). In my recent article in Catalyst on Milwaukee sewer socialism (I’ve uploaded the full text here), I have a section showing how similarly rigid rules about endorsements had to be eventually discarded in the old Socialist Party nationwide after WWI because they tended to lead socialists towards a sectarian abstention from broader anti-corporate electoral insurgencies beyond their party’s control. For what it’s worth, Lenin’s current under Tsarism frequently backed bourgeois candidates in the second round of elections and Lenin himself advocated that British Communists support Labour Party candidates; for his part, Kautsky in 1912 defended the German Social Democracy’s electoral pact with the Progressives in the runoffs. If our predecessors could be that tactically flexible in an era before the limits of their underlying strategic assumptions about intransigent class politics in capitalist democracies were made clear, then there’s no need to insist on being more tactically rigid today, after a century’s worth of accumulated experience. As long as you maintain your own political profile and organization while engaging in broader coalitional efforts, there’s zero inherent contradiction with the principle of political independence. More specifically: DSA and allied organizations should enthusiastically back Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed if AOC declines to run and he throws his hat in the presidential ring. (I have no idea whether he’s even considering this path, but there’ll surely be chatter about it if he wins his Senate race this November.) Though he doesn’t call himself a socialist, El-Sayed is a principled Berniecrat, a consistent fighter for Palestine, and would have a clear path to victory. Using the “s” word is far less important than whether a campaign fights for the interests of working people at home and abroad — and whether actively participating in it can grow the organized working class and the Left. And the same holds true if a less anti-corporate candidate were, under pressure, to adopt our two Healthcare Not Warfare planks. Why focus only on M4A and ending US aid to Israel? There are so many other important issues to fight for! Obviously there are many pivotal issues beyond healthcare and Israel, and our candidate — and especially our organizations involved in the campaign — should be prepared to speak on all of these. But one of the crucial lessons of the Zohran campaign is that you have to relentlessly stay on message if you want to cut through the noise. CNN and Fox News will want to talk about DSA’s views on Venezuela and abolishing the police; we need to polarize the debate on the widely and deeply felt issues that are most favorable for growing the Left, isolating our opponents, and winning urgently needed changes. One recent poll found 63% of Americans support M4A, even after respondents were told it would raise taxes and eliminate most private insurance. Another found that 74% of Democrats opposed “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” And focusing on two demands sets the campaign up to be able to leverage its mandate to make clear demands upon other candidates (which we can’t do if we run with a laundry list of demands). Talking about a Plan B is a distraction from the more urgent work of building a groundswell of calls on AOC to run. It’s good for DSAers, fightback unionists, and progressive organizations to try to convince AOC to run. This proposal is meant as an addendum to pushes to get AOC to run and to line DSA up for that eventuality, not as a substitute for those efforts. But I’m worried that, like in 2024, we might eventually find ourselves with no time to find a viable alternative unless we start now. DSA, with its abundant deliberative processes, moves slowly. The approach you’re suggesting seems risky. If a DSA candidate runs but doesn’t receive a lot of votes, it’ll undercut our current national momentum. This is a reasonable worry. All big initiatives always carry risks, and the path I’m advocating is certainly not free of these. That said, if a Healthcare Not Warfare campaign doesn’t catch on like we envisioned, it’s a pretty simple pivot in March 2028 to explain that in the future we really need our standard-bearers like AOC, or our growing bench of national electeds, to step up in presidential primaries. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the risk of my Plan B proposal is on the whole significantly less than the risk entailed by an AOC run. We should all back her if she runs, since she’d fire up the base, provide huge openings for organizing, have a real shot at defeating a Republican (especially given MAGA’s unpopularity), be a great standard-bearer for our issues, particularly M4A and ending aid to Israel, and be less willing than mainstream candidates to capitulate to any anti-democratic machinations from Trump and co. But it’s also true that AOC could lose, which would be a devastating setback to the country and the Left. Or she could win and find herself unable to pass much, if any, of her (and our) program, a demoralizing prospect. So if we’re willing to take these risks with AOC (and we should), it follows that we should be able to take lower-level risks if she doesn’t throw her hat in the ring. What’s Your Plan B? The US Left is facing its biggest opening for growth and influence since the 1930s. Initiatives that would have been impossible a few months ago are now potentially feasible. A President AOC is now easier to imagine, but if she ultimately assesses that the risks aren’t worth the potential reward in 2028, we can’t be left flat-footed. So even if you’re not convinced by the specifics of my Plan B, I hope you can at least agree that it’d be a disaster for us not to have one — and not to start getting a Plan B into motion. Hopefully other organizers and political currents will put forward their responses and alternative ideas ASAP. The stakes are too high to just wait and see. More As always, please share this article widely. This newsletter depends on all you lovely people to get the word out. Thank you! I uploaded the full text of my Catalyst article on Milwaukee sewer socialism here (it’s updated and 3x as long as the version published earlier on this substack). If you haven’t yet, please make sure to subscribe to Catalyst here; I read every issue front to back, highly recommend. 🌹🎵 Ivan Lins (arranged by Arthur Verocai) — “General da Banda” 🌹🎵

Aug 3 • 12:50 PM EDT • Politics • laborpolitics.com

Health service reviews cost almost £188,000

There were 20 independent investigations or reviews between 2021 and 2025.

Aug 3 • 8:14 AM EDT • Health • yahoo.com

More Than Numbers: Inside Indiana's Medicaid Enrollment Decline

Three years after enrollment peaked during the pandemic, Indiana's Medicaid rolls continue to decline as eligibility reviews reshape the program.

Aug 3 • 8:14 AM EDT • Health • publichealthwatch.org

More Than Numbers: Inside Indiana's Medicaid Enrollment Decline

Three years after enrollment peaked during the pandemic, Indiana's Medicaid rolls continue to decline as eligibility reviews reshape the program.

Aug 3 • 8:14 AM EDT • Health • publichealthwatch.org

RFK Jr. and CNN’s Dana Bash flare up on-air during vaccine argument: ‘You’re talking nonsense’

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took his controversial, widely contested views on vaccines to CNN on Sunday, sparking a heated debate with ‘State of the Union’ cohost Dana Bash that flared into an exchange of barbs.

Aug 2 • 7:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Why online reviews are making it harder to shop, eat out, and travel

Online reviews were supposed to make decisions easier. Instead, we're less satisfied and more anxious with everything from restaurants to vacations.

Aug 2 • 4:34 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Musk is getting his “GRUBBY LITTLE PAWS” back in politics

After a dramatic falling out with MAGA and Trump in 2025, Elon Musk “stepped away” from politics. But now he’s back, reviving his super PAC to support GOP candidates in the midterms. Jacob reviews Musk’s past contributions to MAGA elections, his consequential wins, and an even more telling loss.

Aug 1 • 2:13 PM EDT • Politics • ms.now

Zack Wheeler knows deadline uncertainty better than most: ‘an anxious time'

Zack Wheeler has been traded, nearly moved and left in deadline limbo. Those experiences shaped how he views this time of year.

Aug 1 • 11:30 AM EDT • Sports • nbcsportsphiladelphia.com

Engadget review recap: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Meta Glasses and more

A roundup of recent reviews published by Engadget.

Aug 1 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

UNCW Business School Students Travel to Prague for Real-Life Consulting Experience by Robert Burrus

This article was contributed by Kestrel Smoot, International Programs Coordinator for UNCW’s Cameron School of Business. During the most recent spring semester, 33 upper-level finance and marketing students from the UNCW’s Cameron School of Business traveled to Prague, Czechia, to participate in an intensive international consulting project. Unlike traditional study-abroad programs, the Prague consultancy project focuses on real client engagement. Each year’s project is entirely new, designed through collaboration between faculty and industry partners to identify a current business challenge that students will address. This year, students worked with MAMS-Champi, a Czech non-alcoholic beverage company that is seeking to expand into other global markets. Throughout the first half of the semester, students attend class at UNCW and prepare for their time abroad by conducting preliminary research, developing analytical frameworks, and organizing themselves into specialized teams responsible for tasks such as marketing strategy, industry analysis, consumer segmentation, and competitive evaluation. The course emphasizes independence and teamwork, requiring students to take ownership of their work, manage deadlines, and collaborate across functional groups. Additionally, faculty serve as advisors, allowing students to navigate the complexities of the project much as they would in a professional consulting environment. Once in Prague, students met with company leadership, toured facilities, and refined their recommendations based on real-time feedback. The in-person component is widely regarded as the most transformative aspect of the program because students must synthesize weeks of work into a cohesive presentation and deliver it to the client, demonstrating professionalism, strategic thinking, and adaptability. Beyond the consulting work, students participated in cultural and educational activities that broadened their understanding of global business environments. They explored Prague’s historic districts, learned about Czech culture, and engaged with local professionals. These experiences helped students understand how economic, regulatory, and social factors shape market opportunities. The Prague consultancy project stands as a defining example of the Cameron School of Business’s commitment to experiential learning, consistently strengthening students’ confidence, enhancing their resumes, and serving as a focal point in job interviews. Employers recognize the value of the hands-on experience and transferable skills students gain, underscoring the program’s role in preparing industry-ready graduates for today’s fast-moving business landscape.

Jul 31 • 8:00 PM EDT • Business • wilmingtonbiz.com

See how Google Earth let people make fake scenes of bombings, riots and destruction

Google put on hold an AI feature in Google Earth just hours after it was introduced. People used it to create AI-manipulated aerial views of horrific scenes.

Jul 31 • 4:30 PM EDT • Technology • washingtonpost.com

Book reviews: ‘On the Origin of Sex: The Weird and Wonderful Science of Reproduction’ and ‘You Won’t Get Free of It’

The real story behind reproduction and a collection of essays focusing on mothers and daughters

Jul 31 • 1:42 PM EDT • Science • theweek.com

Corsair Cove Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass, And Here's What The Reviews Are Saying

"Undoubtedly one of the best strategy games of recent years"

Jul 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • purexbox.com

As progressives seek to take on inequality, some cite religion as a motivating factor

Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed says his Muslim faith shapes his progressive views

Jul 31 • 7:30 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

PlayStation reports flat Q1 sales, says it's "cautiously moving forward" with halting physical disc production

"We have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forward those views to us," says CFO

Jul 31 • 7:21 AM EDT • Technology • gamesindustry.biz

How views on Trump's handling of Iran have shifted, according to this poll

Most Americans say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting, and President Donald Trump’s approval rating on Iran has fallen slightly since last month, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Jul 30 • 4:07 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

How views on Trump's handling of Iran have shifted, according to AP-NORC poll

Trump's overall approval rating is at 33%

Jul 30 • 1:50 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Mistfall Hunter Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass, And Here's What The Reviews Are Saying

Available for Premium, PC, and Ultimate members today!

Jul 30 • 6:00 AM EDT • Technology • purexbox.com

Sheet metal, Plainview dentist, data leak make Lubbock business news

Business Reporter Alana Edgin reviews recent Lubbock area businesses news and hints at upcoming articles in the Around the Hub column.

Jul 30 • 5:30 AM EDT • Business • lubbockonline.com

Consumer confidence falls on worse business, labor views

An indicator of present conditions dropped to the lowest since 2021, while a measure of expectations for the next six months was unchanged.

Jul 29 • 10:57 AM EDT • Business • detroitnews.com

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 review

Samsung expanded its foldable lineup in a major way this year. Admittedly, the naming could have been better selected, but we now have a brand-new form...

Jul 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com

Bringing physics down to Earth through rocket science

Keith Cooper reviews It’s (Just) Rocket Science: Exploring Physics Through Spaceflight Missions by Trisha Muro

Jul 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • physicsworld.com

Prosecutors say Charlie Kirk was attacked for his politics, cite anti-LGBT views

Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, targeted the right-wing ‌activist for his political views, prosecutors said on Tuesday, citing Kirk's opposition to gay marriage and transgender rights.

Jul 29 • 4:33 AM EDT • Politics • reuters.com

Conservatives tout Biden tapes as proof of his decline. The audio is more nuanced.

Audio of Joe Biden's interviews with a ghostwriter in 2016 and 2017 show him referencing classified materials and occasionally struggling to recall details.

Jul 28 • 6:48 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Santa Cruz County business filings: week of July 27

Businesses operating in Santa Cruz County must register with the county clerk. Lookout Santa Cruz reviews the public filings from local businesses to report on new businesses starting in the area. Here is what’s new in local business recently. New businesses

Jul 28 • 4:44 PM EDT • Business • lookout.co

Learn about saffron and more at NMSU field day in Los Lunas

PHOTO CAPTION: Participants in the 2023 field day hosted by New Mexico State University’s Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas tour the center’s various plots, including native grass plots....

Jul 28 • 1:20 PM EDT • Science • newsroom.nmsu.edu

Managing Business Logic Interoperability in Multi-Engine Lakehouses

Discover how to solve business logic interoperability in a multi-engine lakehouse. Learn to manage Apache Ossie (incubating), Iceberg Views, and semantic layers.

Jul 28 • 11:01 AM EDT • Business • snowflake.com

US Consumer Confidence Falls on Worse Business, Labor Views

US consumer confidence fell in July as Americans’ views about current business conditions and the labor market deteriorated.

Jul 28 • 10:04 AM EDT • Business • bloomberg.com

Biden interviews with ghostwriter reveal him discussing sensitive information

About three hours of audio and 117 pages of transcripts were released by the conservative Oversight Project

Jul 28 • 8:58 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Biden interviews with ghostwriter reveal him discussing sensitive information

About three hours of audio and 117 pages of transcripts were released by the conservative Oversight Project

Jul 28 • 8:58 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aces Mars flyby capturing stunning timelapse video

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aced its Mars flyby, using the planet’s gravity to speed toward its 2029 encounter with a metal-rich asteroid. The spacecraft tested its cameras, magnetometer, and particle-detecting instruments, capturing unusual views of Mars and measuring its magnetic environment. It also detected neutrons from the planet and spotted the tiny moons Phobos and Deimos.

Jul 27 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

A trove of users’ seemingly private conversations with Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot showed up in Google search results

The topics of the seemingly inadvertently exposed chats ranged from erotica, programming chats, work notes, and fake book reviews.

Jul 27 • 1:20 PM EDT • Technology • fortune.com

Maeda 'nothing short of a legend' at Celtic

Celtic fans, we asked for your views after Daizen Maeda's move to promoted Premier League side Ipswich Town was confirmed. Ian: Daizen Maeda was appallingly let down by Celtic at the last minute and he struggled initially last season.

Jul 27 • 4:05 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

YouTube’s health content rewards attention-grabbing videos over reliable medical information

Researchers analyzed 3,958 Korean-language medical YouTube videos and found that clickbait-heavy content attracted more views, likes, and comments. Higher-quality videos from medical professionals and public institutions often received less attention, highlighting a visibility gap in online health information.

Jul 27 • 12:03 AM EDT • Health • news-medical.net

WATCH: Politics Today for the week of July 26, 2026

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — On July 26, the episode of Politics Today on KAMR Local 4 News, Jack Kessler reviews multiple recent political developments and topics of interest in the Amarillo area…

Jul 26 • 6:09 PM EDT • Politics • myhighplains.com

2 meteor showers peak on the same night this week ‪—‬ how to get the best views, despite a near-full moon

The Delta Aquariids peak on July 30-31, kicking off "meteor season," though bright moonlight will likely limit views.

Jul 26 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Geneva celebrates opening of Seneca W.A.V.E.

GENEVA — The city and Geneva Community Projects celebrated the official launch of Seneca W.A.V.E. — Waterfront Access, Views and Events — July 19 with a free, family-friendly community celebration

Jul 25 • 8:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • fltimes.com

Lubbock business news includes best jerky, sheet metal, AI flyers

Business Reporter Alana Edgin reviews recent Lubbock area businesses news and hints at upcoming articles in the Around the Hub column.

Jul 25 • 5:45 AM EDT • Business • lubbockonline.com

ABI quarterly survey: Employers to invest in their businesses

Many employers expect sales to expand and plan to make capital expenditures. Many are also optimistic about the future and plan to hire more employees. Those were some of the findings of the recent Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s (ABI) third quarter 2026 Quarterly Business Survey. Despite differing views on the broader economy, respondents continue to […]

Jul 24 • 12:08 PM EDT • Business • corridorbusiness.com

Interviews Available from 2026 OVC Football Media Day Presented by Shaw Sports Turf

CHARLESTON - Last week, the Ohio Valley Football Conference hosted their 2026 Football Media Day presented by Shaw Sports Turf. During the day, the Buccaneers' Head Coach and student-athletes spent time speaking with members of the media previewing the upcoming 2026 season. There is an available copy of one of the interviews with each of representatives from Charleston Southern on the department's YouTube page which can be found at the links on this page. Additionally, a link to the ESPN+ broadcast with the segment featuring Charleston Southern is attached here as well.

Jul 24 • 9:20 AM EDT • Sports • csusports.com

Billy V Live: The latest in Hawaii entertainment news

Billy shares exclusive interviews with Hawaii entertainers and gives you the latest in entertainment news!

Jul 23 • 6:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • hawaiinewsnow.com

Comic-Con 2026 Panels, Activations, Cosplay & Convention Floor

San Diego Comic-Con's features Hall H panels, exclusive previews, world premieres and cast appearances from film, TV and gaming

Jul 23 • 1:36 PM EDT • Entertainment • deadline.com

The ‘Halo: Campaign Evolved’ Metacritic Review Score Is In

The Metacritic score for Halo: Campaign Evolved is in, with the most reviews coming in for the PS5 version of the game.

Jul 23 • 11:39 AM EDT • Technology • forbes.com

Vote on key federal health nominee delayed amid questions over vaccine views

Sean Kaufman, nominated to run ASPR, has a track record of questioning the safety of vaccines.

Jul 23 • 10:03 AM EDT • Health • statnews.com

FDA reviews peptide injections favored by RFK Jr. and wellness influencers

Federal health advisers are meeting to review a group of controversial chemicals called peptides

Jul 23 • 12:06 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

1.3K views · 16 reactions | Sony Pictures Entertainment said that it...

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

Jul 22 • 11:52 PM EDT • Entertainment • facebook.com

Billion Views Club entries for Black Eyed Peas, Roxette

Two very different songs have both joined YouTube's Billion Views Club.

Jul 22 • 5:17 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

TNT sports reporter Jon Manley reviews Eagle's Pride Golf Course in DuPont

Jul 22 • 5:02 PM EDT • Sports • thenewstribune.com

Framework Previews Its AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 495 PC Desktop With 192 GB Unified Memory That Effortlessly Runs DeepSeek V4-Flash at Q8

Framework previewed its upcoming Desktop with the AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 495 chip with 192 GB memory that effortlessly runs DeepSeek V4-Flash.

Jul 22 • 4:35 PM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com

Biotech experts want FDA drug reviews based on science, not politics

Biotech experts call for the FDA to prioritize scientific expertise over political influence in drug reviews amid recent leadership changes and staffing challenges.

Jul 22 • 3:53 PM EDT • Politics • journalrecord.com

Biotech experts want FDA drug reviews based on science, not politics

Biotech experts and industry executives are calling plans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — hit by job cuts last year — to hire thousands of employees and update clinical-trial standards encouraging, but want ​assurance that politics will not interfere in the agency's drug-review process.

Jul 22 • 6:06 AM EDT • Science • reuters.com

Biotech experts want FDA drug reviews based on science, not politics

Biotech experts and industry executives are calling plans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — hit by job cuts last year — to hire thousands of employees and update clinical-trial standards encouraging, but want ​assurance that politics will not interfere in the agency's drug-review process.

Jul 22 • 6:06 AM EDT • Politics • reuters.com

Biotech experts want FDA drug reviews based on science, not politics

July 22 (Reuters) - Biotech experts and industry executives are calling plans by the U. Food and Drug Administration — hit by job cuts last year — to hire thousands of employees and update clinical-trial standards encouraging, but want assurance that politics will not interfere in the agency's drug-review process.

Jul 22 • 6:06 AM EDT • Science • finance.yahoo.com

Palmetto Sports Daily: SEC Media Days in full swing, more early football previews

On today’s episode of Palmetto Sports Daily, the crew recaps a busy SEC Media Day, plus more early previews of SC State and Furman football heading into 2026.

Jul 21 • 5:38 PM EDT • Sports • wistv.com

Thoughts on Design: Design Evanston reviews indoor youth sports facility proposal

On July 1, Design Evanston professional members participated in a Project Review of the indoor youth sports facility proposed for 2722 Green Bay Road by

Jul 21 • 2:51 PM EDT • Sports • evanstonroundtable.com

Santa Cruz County business filings: Week of July 21

Businesses operating in Santa Cruz County must register with the county clerk. Lookout Santa Cruz reviews the public filings from local businesses to report on new businesses starting in the area.

Jul 21 • 2:13 PM EDT • Business • lookout.co

Appeals court rejects Biden's bid to block release of audio from memoir ghostwriter interviews

Joe Biden disagrees with an appeals court's rejection of his effort to block the release of audio recordings of his interviews with a memoir ghostwriter.

Jul 21 • 1:40 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

American Franchise Act Would Protect Small Businesses, Boost Economy

To: Members of the House Committee on Education and Workforce From: National Taxpayers Union Date: July 21, 2026 Subject: NTU’s views on the July 21 Markup I. Introduction On behalf of National Taxpayers Union, the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy organization, we write to express our views on legislation slated for consideration before the House Committee on Education and Workforce on July 21, 2026. While NTU recognizes that the Committee is considering a broader package of legislative propo, Author(s): Alexander Ciccone

Jul 21 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • ntu.org

Yankees news: Trade Deadline previews

Domínguez, Jones headline Yanks trade chips; three changes the team can make now; Clarke Schmidt faces live hitters

Jul 21 • 5:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

HeRAMS Ukraine health services across oblasts - Legal entities (April 2026)

Infographic in English on World about Health; published on 22 Jun 2026 by WHO

Jul 20 • 9:34 PM EDT • Health • reliefweb.int

Fake Spa Listings Take Deposits, Then Send Customers to Real Businesses

Customers searching online for a late-night massage around Jackson, Mississippi, are finding spa listings with real street addresses, glowing reviews, and around-the-clock availability. The businesses...

Jul 20 • 6:53 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com

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.

Jul 20 • 6:48 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Darline Graham’s Political Views Largely Unknown As She Launches Senate Campaign

Lindsey Graham became his sister’s legal guardian after their parents died when she was 13.

Jul 20 • 6:20 PM EDT • Politics • forbes.com

Democrat set to replace Platner in Maine led state Senate with a temper

Troy Jackson, the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), yelled and cursed at fellow state lawmakers, interviews reveal.

Jul 20 • 5:14 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Alliance Entertainment and Virax Interviews Aired on the RedChip Small Stocks, Big Money(TM) Show on Bloomberg TV

ORLANDO, FL / ACCESS Newswire / July 20, 2026 / RedChip Companies aired interviews with Alliance Entertainment Holding Corp. (Nasdaq:AENT) and Virax Biolabs Group Ltd. (Nasdaq:VRAX) on the RedChip Small

Jul 20 • 9:02 AM EDT • Entertainment • voiceofalexandria.com

Attacks on Health Care Bi-Monthly News Brief, 24 June - 07 July 2026

Situation Report in English on World and 13 other countries about Health, Protection and Human Rights and more; published on 20 Jul 2026 by Insecurity Insight

Jul 20 • 7:31 AM EDT • Health • reliefweb.int

Fake spa listings use real Jackson-area business addresses to scam customers

The fake listings also include multiple five-star reviews in the comments.

Jul 19 • 11:54 PM EDT • Business • wlbt.com

Israel’s $50 Million Experiment to Change U.S. Public Opinion

Israel deploys AI and payments to conservative media to try to beat back the tide of unfavorable U.S. views about its handling of wars in Gaza and Iran.

Jul 18 • 9:00 PM EDT • Politics • wsj.com

Takeaways from the AP-NORC poll of more than 1,000 Jewish Americans

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

Jul 18 • 9:18 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Takeaways from the AP-NORC poll of more than 1,000 Jewish Americans

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

Jul 18 • 9:12 AM EDT • Politics • ksat.com

Weight-loss drugs may improve job prospects and dating odds for one group

A weight-loss specialist says GLP-1 results boost confidence in job interviews and dating, but the study found no clear improvement in well-being.

Jul 17 • 9:22 PM EDT • Health • foxnews.com

Republican candidates for secretary of state share priorities for elections administration, business regulation

by Maya Shimizu Harris, WyoFile Republican candidates for Wyoming secretary of state shared their visions for the job and views on topics ranging from

Jul 17 • 5:45 PM EDT • Business • oilcity.news

Republican candidates for secretary of state share priorities for elections administration, business regulation

by Maya Shimizu Harris, WyoFile Republican candidates for Wyoming secretary of state shared their visions for the job and views on topics ranging from crossover voting to ballot drop boxes Thursday at a forum in Laramie. Wyoming’s secretary of state post has risen in prominence in recent years as worries about election integrity and shady corporations […]

Jul 17 • 5:45 PM EDT • Business • county17.com

Cyclosporiasis, measles, air quality: Doctor reviews latest health news

Dr. Todd Ellerin joins NewsCenter 5 to review the latest health stories about cyclosporiasis, measles and air quality impacts from wildfire smoke.

Jul 17 • 5:05 PM EDT • Health • wcvb.com

Cleveland Browns 2026 Training Camp Previews: Tight Ends

Jul 17 • 12:13 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

2026 FSU Position Previews: Special teams

Look for FSU’s special teams to bounce back after a disappointing 2025 season

Jul 17 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Disney Jr., Animaj Quietly Launch ‘Ozzy Fox’ On Youtube

Created by Jennifer Oxley and developed by 'Pocoyo' creator Guillermo García-Carsí, the preschool series has drawn nearly 800,000 views in its first two days.

Jul 17 • 6:01 AM EDT • Technology • cartoonbrew.com

Sports without politics is a fantasy and the World Cup proves it

From ancient Greece to Nazi Germany, sport and politics have long been intertwined. Nevertheless, we still imagine that international sport can be kept above the fray and serve as a neutral arena where nations compete on merit alone. In this article, diplomacy scholar Geoffrey Allen Pigman argues the 2026 FIFA World Cup shows this is a dangerous illusion. When international sport is left entirely to revenue-maximizing private bodies like FIFA, it doesn't escape politics, but rather surrenders to its worst expressions. With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics fast approaching, the IOC must decide whether to learn that lesson or repeat the same mistakes. The largest and most lucrative FIFA World Cup ever draws toward its climactic conclusion amidst a swirl of controversy. Team members, staff, fans, and spectators have been denied their right to enter the United States to participate, and US President Donald Trump intervened with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to overturn a referee’s call that Trump believed disadvantaged the US national team. It is a moment to step back and reflect on what the purposes of international sport mega-events like the World Cup, and international sport more broadly, are, and what they should be. Does international sport serve public purposes? Is there a public interest? Or is it primarily a private endeavor organized by commercial enterprises to entertain the global public (and generate profit in the process), which is occasionally used by governments and leaders for raisons d’etat? Central to the idea of sport is the principle of fair play, which in the international context demands that games be free from political interference. However, it is impossible to separate sport from politics, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The most positive political use of international sport through the millennia has been to facilitate diplomacy. The use of international sport for diplomatic objectives has existed since at least the time of the ancient Olympic Games, around which was instituted the custom of the Ekecheiria, or Olympic Truce, between participating states to facilitate fair competition and diplomatic achievements by ensuring that participants could travel safely to the Olympiad. In his seminal work On Diplomacy (1987), diplomacy scholar James Der Derian characterized the objectives of diplomacy as overcoming alienation and mediating estrangement between governments and between peoples. One increasingly important diplomatic tool in the technology-infused media environment over the past century has been public diplomacy, under which governments and non-state diplomatic actors (e.g. transnational corporations) communicate to global publics about their international policy objectives and to shape their global brand image. Political scientist Michał Kobierecki, in his important book Sports Diplomacy (2020), views sports diplomacy as falling broadly within the ambit of public diplomacy, as international sport intimately involves the participation of global publics as spectators and consumers of global media. Diplomacy scholar Stuart Murray and this author, in a 2013 article, distinguish between international sport used for diplomatic purposes and international sport-as-diplomacy, which encompasses the range of diplomacy that occurs as teams and competitors, spectators and fans, and government officials all converge for international sporting events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. Diplomacy scholar H.E. Chehabi, in a 2001 article on US-Iran sports diplomacy, describes the interaction between spectators and fans at international sporting events as “people-to-people diplomacy,” in which relationships develop independently of governments and their objectives. Diplomacy by the aforementioned definitions is often unsuccessful. Moreover, all too often the tools of diplomacy may be employed by governments and other actors to thwart or oppose the objectives of diplomacy as characterized by Der Derian. Governments routinely use the tools of public diplomacy to disseminate propaganda, spreading misinformation in the attempt to deceive global publics about their objectives and to create misleading impressions about their brand identity. Within sports diplomacy, the term “sportswashing” has been coined recently to describe how governments invest in and promote international sport to create positive global public impressions of their nations and, in doing so, to distract the global public from their deficient records in areas such as human rights and democratic governance. Murray, in his 2018 book Sports Diplomacy: Origins, Theory and Practice, introduces the concept of sports anti-diplomacy, wherein governments intentionally use international sport to advance aggressive and nationalistic objectives. Obvious historical examples include Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to glorify his Third Reich and the 1969 El Salvador-Honduras football “war.” SUGGESTED READING The beautiful game made ugly By Emily Ryall FIFA argues that it is and seeks to be apolitical in its stewardship of international Association Football (soccer). FIFA policies governing bids to host the World Cup require uninhibited and non-discriminatory access for players, team staff, and spectators of all participating countries to host nations and venues. It became clear soon after Trump returned to power in the United States in January 2025 that Trump’s political intentions and objectives to limit non-US citizens from living and working in the United States and, in numerous cases, even visiting the country, would collide with FIFA’s host nation policies. Beginning soon after the start of the second Trump administration, US federal authorities imposed restrictions on entry to the United States of citizens of between 20 and 40 countries for any purpose, with only limited exceptions. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began arresting non-US citizens in the United States, including persons with and without legal status, holding them in jails, concentration camps, and other detention facilities until they were deported to their home or third countries, where they faced substantive risks to their personal safety. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, in an effort to ensure the most successful and lucrative World Cup in history, engaged diplomatically with President Trump in an attempt to facilitate entry to the US for World Cup participants. Infantino did all in his power to ingratiate himself with Trump, to the extent of creating a FIFA “Peace Prize,” which he awarded to Trump in December 2025 at a ceremony in the then Trump-controlled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the World Cup draw. The prize was an ersatz consolation for someone who aspired in vain to win the rather more prestigious and well-known Nobel Peace Prize. And in the run-up to the World Cup, conditions became worse. In February 2026, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a war of aggression against Iran, illegal under international law, under the false pretence that Iran’s government was preparing to attack the United States and Israel. During the US aerial bombardment of Iran, US planes bombed Azadi Stadium, the facility where Iran’s national football team trained. As the 2026 FIFA World Cup began, it was clear that Infantino’s efforts had been for naught: the Trump administration would not adhere to FIFA policies governing access to World Cup host nations. World Cup referee Omar Artan, a citizen of Somalia, was denied a US visa to enter the United States to participate in the World Cup. Trump’s government only granted US visas to Iran’s football team ten days before they were scheduled to arrive for the tournament. Numerous members of the support staff for Iran’s team were denied US visas. Iran’s team, which had been scheduled to train in Arizona, was directed to shift its training site to Tijuana, Mexico, notwithstanding that all three of their group stage matches took place at US venues. The US Department of Homeland Security only permitted the Iranian team to enter the US on the day before each scheduled match and then to return to Mexico immediately after playing. Members of Iraq’s and Switzerland’s football teams were delayed for hours by US officials at the US border, and an Iraqi team photographer was refused entry. Spectators and fans from Haïti and Iran were denied entry to the United States altogether. A large number of fans from a range of countries had their applications for US visas rejected. There were multiple off-ramps through which participants could have avoided the negative consequences of Trump’s decisions for the 2026 World Cup. Once it was clear that the Trump government intended to violate the established expectations for World Cup hosts, FIFA could have shifted the matches scheduled to take place in the United States to Mexico and Canada. The three nations were already designated as co-hosts, and host cities and venues had been selected. Once it was clear that FIFA, governed by FIFA boss Gianni Infantino’s dependent and dysfunctional relationship with Trump, would never consider this option on its own, it fell to the national football federations to act. The national federations, particularly some combination of federations of the leading contenders (France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, England, Germany, etc.), could have refused to participate under the US-imposed conditions or, at the least, demanded an ironclad agreement with the Trump government that FIFA policies on access would be respected. ___ International sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. ___ Why did neither FIFA nor the national football federations act to protect the interests of players, team staff, referees, fans, and spectators? In essence, the relentless engines of capitalism prevailed over norm observance, ethics, and fair play. The revenue interests of FIFA, sponsors, global media, and host cities won out. FIFA’s managers viewed hosting another World Cup principally in the United States as a veritable pot of gold for FIFA and its collaborators. FIFA has estimated its own revenue over the 2023-26 budget cycle, which includes the 2026 World Cup, at $13 billion, revised up from an initial projection of $11 billion, and 72% higher than the previous revenue cycle. Of that total, FIFA is estimated to have generated $8.9 billion from the Cup itself in revenue from TV rights ($3.92 billion), sponsorships ($2.69 billion), ticket sales ($3.1 billion), licensing rights, and other sources. A joint study by FIFA and the World Trade Organization estimates that the World Cup will contribute over $40 billion to global GDP, including nearly $14 billion in direct visitor spending in the three host countries (but principally in the United States, which hosted the lion’s share of the matches). The FIFA World Cup is now reportedly “the single most lucrative recurring commercial property in global sport.” And yet, notwithstanding the Trump government’s uses of the World Cup for sports anti-diplomacy, and the climate of anxiety that this created for participants and spectators, diplomacy that did not depend upon governments was able to thrive at the World Cup. Examples of successful people-to-people diplomacy were legion, as citizens of towns and cities across the States, as well as in Mexico and Canada, welcomed team members, their families and supporters, to training sites across North America. Fans of different teams joined together in person in stadiums for matches, at watch parties and bars, and at welcome events sponsored by host cities. The joy and camaraderie shared between the citizenry of Boston and Scotland’s “Tartan Army” of fans is but one example of how the “Beautiful Game” brings people together. Friendships forged across continents are likely to endure well beyond the Cup final. Even those achievements cannot be seen as unalloyed, however. As South African football fan Byron Pillay commented to Al Jazeera, “Football is called the Beautiful Game for a reason, for its ability to unite people. But it’s hard to believe in that magic with the politics and war rhetoric off the field of play, especially when one of the tournament hosts is central to that.” Ultimately, the experience of the 2026 FIFA World Cup illustrates that, as international sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. As long as there is the possibility of diplomatic progress in mediating estrangement between governments or between peoples, there is a broad and overarching public interest in international sport. Likewise, as it would be difficult to put on an international sport mega-event without international sporting organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), global media firms, and companies purchasing sponsorships, public and private interests in international sport must coexist, most likely somewhere on a shifting spectrum between partnership and rivalry or cross purposes. As the World Cup wraps up, the IOC needs to consider its lessons before the scheduled 2028 Los Angeles Olympics if they want to avoid a media-hyped Trump version of the 1936 Berlin Olympiad. The IOC and the National Olympic Committees need to set conditions on and make demands of Trump’s government with clearly articulated consequences for non-compliance, up to and including cancellation of the Games. Time is running out for the IOC, as unlike with the FIFA World Cup, there is no at-the-ready alternate venue for Los Angeles.

Jul 16 • 8:00 PM EDT • Politics • iai.tv

OVC Football Media Day Presented by Shaw Sports Turf Coverage Guide

The 2026 OVC Football Media Day presented by Shaw Sports Turf will be held on Friday, July 17 in Nashville, Tennessee. Live interviews with head coaches and student-athletes from each team will be streamed on ESPN+.

Jul 16 • 10:00 AM EDT • Sports • ovcsports.com

Engagement in public life is linked with Americans’ views of politics, news

Americans who participate more in public life are more interested in politics – and more likely to have positive feelings about the state of their local communities.

Jul 16 • 9:36 AM EDT • Politics • pewresearch.org

KFF Health Tracking Poll: Public Views on Fraud in Government Health Programs

As the 2026 midterms approach, health care costs remain voters' top health priority, but fraud in government health programs, including Medicaid and Medicare, is resonating with Republican voters, 55% of whom say it's extremely important for candidates to address. Most voters say there is at least “some” fraud in government health programs, but larger shares say there is fraud in the tax system, defense, and foreign aid, while the smallest share sees fraud in the ACA Marketplaces.

Jul 16 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • kff.org

Poll shows most Californians support Becerra for governor, CEQA reform

A new poll shows Xavier Becerra with a hefty lead in the California governor's race. Voters also expressed strong opposition to AI data centers and nuanced views on environmental policies and affordability.

Jul 16 • 12:00 AM EDT • Politics • latimes.com

Beck the Lead Author of Article Published in <em>Quaternary Science Reviews</em>

“Pleistocene record of a dynamic, fluctuating lacustrine margin from the Turkana Basin, Kenya,” co-authored by Associate Professor of Geosciences Catherine (Cat) Beck, appears in the October issue of Quaternary Science Reviews from Elsevier.

Jul 15 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • hamilton.edu

‘The Odyssey’ reviews: What critics are saying about Christopher Nolan’s take on the epic

Before you watch ‘The Odyssey,’ see what critics are saying about the new Christopher Nolan epic.

Jul 15 • 7:23 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com