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Business journalism studies took her to the White House | UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

The story by UNC Hussman alumni Brennan Doherty ’19 and video by John Roberts ’16 (M.A.) was originally published on unc.edu. This story is part of a four-part series on Carolina alumni working in Washington, D.C. Soon after her 2015 graduation from UNC-Chapel Hill, Megan Cassella was an intern for the Reuters news agency, eagerly awaiting and prepping for a special assignment. “Every now and then they needed an intern to run over to the White House last minute,” Cassella said. “You have to send your information the night before, so I started proactively sending my information to the White House every single night to be able to go the next day if they ever needed an intern.” Since then, she’s made many return trips to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in a career that’s included roles at Reuters, Politico, Barron’s and now CNBC, where she works as an on-air Washington correspondent. A longtime newswriter, Cassella made the move to TV in 2024, appearing on broadcasts multiple times daily to report on the biggest political and business stories. But the keys to doing a good job — knowing how to research, asking insightful questions, building relationships and explaining complex topics to a broad audience — remain the same. Did you know: Outside of the state of North Carolina, the Washington region is home to the largest concentration of Tar Heel alumni in the country. Cassella’s time as a Tar Heel was crucial in sharpening those skills, both in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and through roles at student-run publications like The Daily Tar Heel. She excelled in Carolina’s business journalism program with former professor Chris Roush, which led to an internship at The Charlotte Observer and helped Cassella find her journalistic niche. A data journalism course with Associate Professor Ryan Thornburg taught her how to find stories in numbers, and former professor Paul O’Connor’s reporting class took Cassella to the North Carolina Capitol weekly, where she gained invaluable experience interviewing politicians. “Those hands-on experiences that Carolina gave me really kept my interest and have really benefited me since I’ve been up here in D.C.,” said Cassella. “I have UNC to thank for the fact that I even went into business journalism in the first place.” Megan Cassella ’15 “You’ve got to thrive on adrenaline in this job. You’ve got to do well with last-minute changes, with running by the seat of your pants.” Megan Cassella ’15 ‘There’s nothing else like it’ In recent months, Cassella has reported live from the G7 Summit in Geneva, covered the latest developments in the U.S.-Iran war and followed changes to trade policy, including tariffs. “Anything in this realm that influences Wall Street, I’ll be covering,” Cassella said. Her working hours are long and variable. After waking up, Cassella immediately checks her phone to see what news broke overnight. By 8:15 a.m., she usually learns which newscasts she’ll be on, and then she heads to the newsroom, White House or wherever her assignment is. “We want you in the 9 a.m. show and the 11, and then the 3 o’clock show wants you, too,” Cassella said, referring to a hypothetical day. If Cassella gets an exclusive or major news breaks, she might be told, “We want that on TV right now.” Within five minutes, she’d be expected to get to the camera, figure out what to say and deliver the news to a live audience. “It’s exciting. It’s nerve-wracking,” Cassella said. “But there’s nothing else like it.” A well-rounded education Cassella grew up in Maryland, the youngest of four kids. Her oldest brother, Brian Cassella ’05, attended Carolina, became a photojournalist and recently won a Pulitzer Prize. She remembers visiting campus as a young child and loving it. “I just always wanted to go,” she said, and that desire grew when she, like her brother, gravitated toward journalism. But it wasn’t just the journalism school that drew Cassella to Carolina. “It was also the whole liberal arts curriculum,” she said. “Even though I always wanted to be a journalist, I got to college, and I sort of felt I had to think about other things. I had to explore my options and see if that’s what I really wanted.” Did you know: In April UNC-Chapel Hill opened its Carolina in the Capital office in Washington. She combined her journalism schooling with a global studies major and a history minor. That broad range of academic experiences in Chapel Hill molded her, preparing Cassella for a career that’s taken her to the highest levels of political journalism and inside the Oval Office. “When you sit back and remember you’re actually sitting inside the White House and asking questions of the president, it’s a cool feeling,” Cassella said. “No matter who is in office, no matter what administration or party, it’s a privilege to be there.” Megan Cassella on… Being a Tar Heel in Washington: I run into Tar Heels all the time. My husband’s a Tar Heel. We actually met here in Washington, not at Carolina, even though we were the same class. Probably most of our friends are still Tar Heels. Even up here in D.C., we all get together for games and March Madness. And through work, there’s Tar Heels all over the place. It’s often used as a connection. Favorite Franklin Street spot: When we go back, our first stop is always IP3. That’s more my husband’s doing than mine. In college, I was a huge Spanky’s fan. Felt like it was a classic spot. May it rest in peace. Advice to journalism students: Reps, reps, reps! Nothing beats the experience you’ll gain by simply starting to do the work — asking the questions, reporting and writing the stories, doing the TV hits. When you can, go places in person. Talk to more people than you think you’ll need. Read as much as you can, from different sources and on different topics. If you’re not sure how to start your story, that usually means you need more reporting. When you’re not sure, ask.

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Jul 29 • 10:39 AM EDT • Business • hussman.unc.edu
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WATCH: Fauci invokes 5th Amendment, declining to answer questions in GOP-led hearing on COVID-19
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Jul 29 • 9:46 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
What Fauci’s Senate Testimony Hearing Can Teach Public Health Leaders

How Fauci faced his own words: “It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable."

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Jul 29 • 9:28 AM EDT • Health • forbes.com
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Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment, declines to testify in COVID-19 Senate hearing

In his opening statement, Fauci said Paul has an "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution"

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Jul 29 • 9:23 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
Dr. Fauci, the Age of Big Players in science and what his diary reveals about the disputed origins of Covid

In the age of Big Players, even science has become politicized. The most recent evidence is contained in Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary.

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Jul 29 • 9:20 AM EDT • Science • fortune.com
Dr. Anthony Fauci pleads the Fifth to avoid Senate questions about Covid pandemic

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the US government response to the Covid-19 pandemic, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, refusing to testify Wednesday just minutes into a Capitol Hill hearing that Republicans outwardly hoped would undermine the scientist and open him to claims of perjury.

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Jul 29 • 8:56 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
WATCH LIVE: Senate panel questions Fauci on ‘diary entries’ about COVID-19 origins
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Jul 29 • 8:38 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
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'Demon cavefish' discovered under WWII chemical weapons facility in Alabama

Introducing demon cavefish (Demogorgonichthys arcanus); the rare eyeless predators that have been hiding in plain sight below a military base for decades.

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Jul 29 • 8:21 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com
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Live updates: Anthony Fauci to face Senate questions on Covid origins

Get live updates and the latest news on the Trump administration as Anthony Fauci faces senators’ questions about the origins of Covid and Sen. Linsey Graham is laid to rest in South Carolina.

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Jul 29 • 7:18 AM EDT • Politics • nbcnews.com
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Fauci to face Republican questions over Covid pandemic origins

Veteran medical adviser likely to face questions over disputed ‘lab leak’ theory in investigation seen by scientists as ‘vilification and harassment’ of 85-year-old

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Jul 29 • 6:28 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com
Ex-Trump health official shocked by Fauci’s ‘unabashed narcissism’ from diaries

A former Trump health official on Tuesday slammed Dr. Anthony Fauci over his recently-released journal entries. “I’d like to see honesty and transparency and I’d like Tony to come clean…

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Jul 28 • 9:39 PM EDT • Health • thehill.com
'Not alike any we've ever seen before': Three of the 12 galaxies in this cosmic string are missing a crucial component of the universe

Astronomers have discovered a third galaxy without dark matter in a strange string of a dozen dwarf galaxies. A violent collision is likely to blame.

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Jul 28 • 4:04 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com
Yankees At-Bat of the Week: Jasson Domínguez (7/25)

Domínguez tacked on a crucial insurance run late in the Yankees’ win over the Phillies on Saturday.

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Jul 28 • 2:30 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Bracing for another Fauci hearing

Plus: Democrats take on Trump over IVF, and Trump's White House releases a new science funding blueprint.

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Jul 28 • 12:37 PM EDT • Health • statnews.com
WhatsApp launches web calling alongside new features: call transfer, waiting room

WhatsApp is officially launching support for taking voice and video calls on the web, as well as introducing a bunch...

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Jul 28 • 10:00 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
Introducing Live Science Pro — a new space to get all the science with none of the distractions

Go beyond the headlines to read the latest in-depth science features, op-eds, book excerpts and more.

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Jul 28 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com
The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci

He built an empire. It did not last.

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Jul 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • theatlantic.com
A slowing Atlantic current could unleash stronger California storms

A weakening Atlantic current could supercharge California’s atmospheric rivers while leaving Greenland with fewer snow-producing storms. The changes could raise flood risks, strain infrastructure, and reshape water supplies far beyond the Atlantic.

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Jul 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci

He built an empire. It did not last.

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Jul 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • theatlantic.com
Anthony Fauci’s pandemic-era diary entries

New data on American substance use, concerns of a global HIV resurgence, and more health news from Morning Rounds

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Jul 28 • 7:57 AM EDT • Health • statnews.com
Deadline approaches for Barcelona’s offer for Julian Alvarez

FC Barcelona’s pursuit of Julian Alvarez has reached a crucial stage after club president Joan Laporta confirmed that the offer made for the Atletico Madrid striker would not remain valid indefinite...

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Jul 28 • 7:45 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
A Two-Person Startup Has Fixed One of the Most Hated Sounds in Modern Life

A couple of enterprising sound designers have taken on the challenge of producing more pleasant beeps for the humble microwave.

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Jul 28 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • wired.com
Hugging Face Has a Deepfake Nudes Problem

Researchers tested top image editing models on Hugging Face and found they could easily create explicit deepfakes—and 1,000 image editing prompts show how people use the software.

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Jul 28 • 1:30 AM EDT • Technology • wired.com
Dems clash over AIPAC money, ‘ogre’ attack and electability during crucial Senate debate

El-Sayed refused to apoelogize for the “ogre on a pike" remark that drew backlash from fellow Democrats, while Haley Stevens slammed him over his unreleased tax returns and roughly $300k in outside income.

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Jul 27 • 10:28 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
Misfolded insulin may be quietly driving diabetes

Researchers found that insulin-producing cells depend on a team of helper proteins to keep insulin production on track. When one key partner was missing, damaged proteins built up and the cells made less insulin. Strengthening this system could offer a new way to protect the pancreas as diabetes progresses.

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Jul 27 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
St. Louis Cardinals Game Discussion vs Chicago Cubs Monday

The St. Louis Cardinals begin a crucial 4-game series versus their arch rivals the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium Monday night. According to MLB.com, the Cubs will start LHP David Peterson. The Cardinals starter is Matthew Liberatore according to MLB.com. First pitch set for 6:45pm Monday night at Busch Stadium with the TV broadcast available […]

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Jul 27 • 7:30 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Weiser’s leadership crucial for rural win-win

Attorney General Phil Weiser is going to win the gubernatorial election. That said, Colorado agriculture and rural communities have a 30-year track record of finding the win-win be it for species or industries or habitat. Former Governor Roy Romer possessed what Gov. Jared Polis has demonstrated repeatedly he doesn’t have: the willingness to find compromise […]

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Jul 27 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com
How To Get Your Business Data Ready For AI Agents

Discover four practical steps for making business data ready for agentic AI while reducing risks around governance, compliance and accountability.

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Jul 27 • 1:17 AM EDT • Business • forbes.com
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Sal Stewart's Clutch Performances Fuel Reds' Recent Turnaround

Despite a mid-season slump, the slugging rookie is powering Cincinnati’s resurgence with high-stakes hits and a team-leading 21 home runs to spark a crucial postseason push.

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Jul 26 • 10:03 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Inside Fauci's private diary: What he wrote about Trump, TV personalities and celebrities

Anthony Fauci's diary entries reveal candid opinions about Trump, Mark Meadows, Jake Tapper and celebrities he encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Jul 26 • 7:19 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
007 First Light's first major patch is here – and it's a doozy if you're playing on PS5

007 First Light's first major post-launch update, Patch 1.1.0, is here, introducing "fixes and improvements for over 200 issues reported by the community and ou

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Jul 26 • 11:44 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net
Michigan, Missouri primaries will again lay bare the Democratic divide over Israel

Fiercely fought primaries on August 4 in Michigan and Missouri will provide the next crucial tests in the debate over American policy toward Israel that has convulsed the Democratic Party this year.

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Jul 26 • 6:30 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Left-wing Democrats are riding high - but can they lure back swing voters?

They have seen a flurry of recent wins, but Michigan will test their ability to win back working-class voters in crucial states.

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Jul 25 • 11:58 PM EDT • Politics • bbc.com
Top Entertainment Stocks To Follow Now

Verizon Communications, Walt Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Autodesk, SEA, Take-Two Interactive Software, and Live Nation Entertainment are the seven Entertainment stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeat's stock screener tool. Entertainment stocks are shares of companies involved in produci

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Jul 25 • 1:01 PM EDT • Entertainment • marketbeat.com
Three Chargers Storylines to Follow Heading Into Training Camp

The Los Angeles Chargers are gearing up for a crucial season, head coach Jim Harbaugh's third with the organization. The post Three Chargers Storylines to Follow Heading Into Training Camp appeared first on LA Sports Report.

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Jul 24 • 10:39 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Patriots waive WR Jimmy Kibble with an injury designation
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Jul 24 • 5:44 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Dell Deskside Agentic AI cuts token costs by up to 87%

Dell, with Nvidia, introduces Deskside Agentic AI to manage token costs, enabling local trillion-parameter model runs and reducing cloud expenses.

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Jul 24 • 12:38 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
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BLM Approves Projects to Improve Forest Health and Reduce Wildfire Risk in the Fall River Valley

ALTURAS, Calif. – The Bureau of Land Management Applegate Field Office has approved two forest resilience projects in the Fall River Valley, aimed at improving forest health, reducing wildfire risk, and strengthening community preparedness. Work on both projects is expected to begin in fall 2026.

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Jul 24 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • blm.gov
Malik Nabers avoids PUP list to start Giants training camp
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Jul 23 • 7:10 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Lucia heats up weeknights with new food and entertainment - Beverly Press & Park Labrea News

Lucia, the Afro-Caribbean restaurant in Los Angeles from restaurateur Sam Jordan and chef Cleophus “Ophus” Hethington, is introducing...

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Jul 23 • 6:35 PM EDT • Entertainment • beverlypress.com
Lucia S. Tsaoussi, Ph.D.

Dr. Tsaoussi serves as the Program Manager for NASA’s Space Geodesy program

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Jul 23 • 3:55 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov
Atari Universal Movie Deal For 10 Iconic Game IP; Script Matt Reilly & Carl Hampe Entertainment 360 Producing

Atari Makes Universal Deal For 10 Of Its Iconic Game IP; First Up Is Original Script By Matt Reilly & Carl Hampe With Entertainment 360 Producing

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Jul 23 • 1:23 PM EDT • Entertainment • deadline.com
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When It Comes to Fusion, Materials Matter

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

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Jul 23 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • newscenter.lbl.gov
White House Science Report Calls For Reducing University Research Funding

A White House report calls for reduced funding for universities and argues that the government should re-allocate much of the money to the “individual scientist” instead.

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Jul 23 • 10:14 AM EDT • Science • forbes.com
Free summer celebration Saturday at Manatee Lagoon to feature science, stories, activities

WPEC CBS 12 provides local news, weather, sports, traffic and entertainment for West Palm Beach and nearby towns and communities in South Florida including the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast, serving Stuart, Royal Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, Port St. Lucie, Okeechobee, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, Wellington, Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Lake Worth, Boynton Beach, Greenacres, Belle Glade, Palm Beach, and Riviera Beach.

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Jul 23 • 9:41 AM EDT • Science • cbs12.com
Inside Amazon's push to lower Alexa AI costs

Internal documents show Amazon worked to lower Alexa+ AI costs by reducing the use of Anthropic models and getting more work from every GPU.

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Jul 23 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Language radiologists use in reports is crucial, new research shows

Indeterminate reports can leave ordering providers with unanswered questions that could potentially delay care, authors of a new paper caution.

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Jul 23 • 12:25 AM EDT • Business • radiologybusiness.com
Pair of Bucs Selected to 'NFL All-Backup Team'

New free-agent acquisitions Kenneth Gainwell and Al-Quadin Muhammad earn national recognition for providing the crucial roster depth necessary to spark Tampa Bay’s return to the postseason.

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Jul 22 • 11:28 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Pair of Bucs Selected to 'NFL All-Backup Team'

New free-agent acquisitions Kenneth Gainwell and Al-Quadin Muhammad earn national recognition for providing the crucial roster depth necessary to spark Tampa Bay’s return to the postseason.

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Jul 22 • 11:28 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
All Wet Sports closing after 24 years in Jacksonville

After more than two decades of introducing Jacksonville residents to the joys of paddling, windsurfing and wakeboarding, All Wet Sports is closing its doors.

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Jul 22 • 7:38 PM EDT • Sports • news4jax.com
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Officers shoot man allegedly armed near UCI Health in Los Alamitos; condition unknown
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Jul 22 • 5:13 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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Undrafted free agent Riley Wilson to sign with Patriots
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Jul 22 • 4:50 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Padilla Leads Tri-Caucus in Introducing Sweeping Health Equity Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), along with Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Representatives Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.-25), Robin Kelly (D-Ill.-02), and Grace Meng (D-N.Y.-06) announced the reintroduction of the Health Equity and Accountability Act (HEAA) of 2026, bicameral legislation that would address health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities as well […]

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Jul 22 • 4:33 PM EDT • Health • padilla.senate.gov
Reducing muscle protein activity strengthens bone health, study suggests

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), or "brittle bone disorder," is a connective tissue disorder that affects collagen, a protein that makes up much of the body's structure. There are more than 10 different ...

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Jul 22 • 3:00 PM EDT • Health • medicalxpress.com
UCI Health in Los Alamitos on lockdown

Police were urging the public to avoid the area.

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Jul 22 • 2:45 PM EDT • Health • nbclosangeles.com
UCI Health - Los Alamitos medical center on lockdown amid massive police response

A medical center in Los Alamitos was placed on lockdown Wednesday morning amid a massive response by police at the facility.

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Jul 22 • 2:40 PM EDT • Health • abc7.com
Washington Nationals vs Colorado Rockies Game Thread

Follow along as the Nats look for another series win in a crucial rubber match with the Rockies

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Jul 22 • 2:40 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Canadian cryogenics company coming to South Side quantum park

A Canadian manufacturer of cryogenic equipment that’s crucial to quantum computing is coming to The Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park on the South Side.

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Jul 22 • 2:25 PM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com
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Xbox Announces Backwards Compatibility For PC, First Four Games Revealed

"Today, we’re introducing XBOX Backward Compatibility on PC"

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Jul 22 • 11:13 AM EDT • Technology • purexbox.com
A crucial governor’s primary just became Democrats’ biggest debacle

How the Wisconsin governor’s race became a tire fire for Democrats.

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Jul 22 • 6:45 AM EDT • Politics • vox.com
Céline Gounder on cyclospora reporting.

CBS’s Céline Gounder on how the rapid spread of the “diarrhea parasite” is a symptom of Trump’s government cuts—which have stymied access to crucial public health information.

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Jul 22 • 6:34 AM EDT • Health • cjr.org
Patriots’ Harold Landry lands on active/PUP list

While Harold Landry is expecting to be a crucial part of the Patriots' defense, he'll first need to get off the PUP list.

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Jul 22 • 12:04 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Of course Matt Damon told Ben Affleck about landing the lead role in ‘The Odyssey’ before his wife

Matt Damon admitted that he told Ben Affleck about landing the lead role in ‘The Odyssey’ before his wife Luciana Barroso.

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Jul 21 • 6:49 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
New Michigan budget delivers mixed results for business community

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

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Jul 21 • 6:03 PM EDT • Business • crainsdetroit.com
iBerkshires Monthly Business Review July

iBerkshires has been busy writing about local businesses. Our new monthly section Berkshire Built highlights local businesses that are producing their own goods. Read our second Berkshire...

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Jul 21 • 1:13 PM EDT • Business • iberkshires.com
Introducing AT&T Business Unlimited Ultimate 3.0

New Unlimited Ultimate 3.0 includes connectivity for one tablet and one wearable with every voice line, helping businesses extend productivity beyond the smartphone.

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Jul 21 • 10:00 AM EDT • Business • about.att.com
FDA’s Review Of Peptides Signals A Growing Public Health Challenge— Separating Science From Hype

A FDA advisory committee will review evidence surrounding peptides. Experts are concerned there is a paucity of evidence to back their approval for legal compounding.

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Jul 21 • 8:23 AM EDT • Health • forbes.com
Briar Cliff University Expands Business Programs, Introduces New Degrees and Curriculum Enhancements

Briar Cliff University is introducing new undergraduate and graduate academic programs, expanding interdisciplinary learning opportunities, restructuring its business department, and pursuing specialized business accreditation to better prepare students for evolving workforce needs.

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Jul 21 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • briarcliff.edu
International Courts Against the Defunding of Climate Science? Revisiting the ICJ’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion

Introduction The first eighteen months of the second Trump administration have witnessed a sustained assault on scientific infrastructures enabling understanding of anthropogenic climate change. This has taken the form of cuts to national science agencies; freezes and dramatic reductions in grants to universities; and attempts to dismantle observation arrays and crucial monitoring stations. It has […]

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Jul 21 • 3:00 AM EDT • Science • ejiltalk.org
The 80/20 Institute CEO Bill Canady Releases The Rule of Three, Introducing a Leadership Framework for High-Performing Companies

Lakewood Ranch, FL, July 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 80/20 Institute today announced the release of The Rule of Three: How Visionaries, Ope...

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Jul 20 • 7:14 PM EDT • Business • markets.businessinsider.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.

Trump and Burnham: Can the two leaders work together?

The BBC's Sarah Smith looks at how the new UK prime minister will manage his most crucial, and perhaps the trickiest, international relationship.

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Jul 20 • 4:14 PM EDT • Politics • bbc.com
Asset Management Business Model Transformation

Asset management business model transformation is key for growth. Adapting beyond investment strategy is crucial as competition shifts. Explore evolving business models.

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Jul 20 • 2:49 PM EDT • Business • fundssociety.com
Introducing: Breitling Top Time B01 Chronograph 41 Tribute To Aston Martin DB5

Breitling leans into the shapely Top Time chronograph's cushion case in a tribute to the mighty Aston Martin DB5 (and a nod to its Bond-film links, too).

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Jul 20 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • hodinkee.com
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process

[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe

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Jul 20 • 9:29 AM EDT • Science • democracysos.substack.com
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

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Jul 20 • 9:25 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
Davenport University launches business degrees that save students time and money

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Jul 20 • 8:18 AM EDT • Business • post.davenport.edu
What scientists felt when approaching Egyptian mummies will truly shock you - Futura-Sciences

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Jul 19 • 7:00 PM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com
Hawai‘i comes in first — at being worst state for business

The fix for a bad business climate isn’t more bureaucracy. It’s less. Reducing taxes and regulations help revitalize the economy. If only our lawmakers would embrace those policies more often.

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Jul 19 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • kauainownews.com
Hawai‘i comes in first — at being worst state for business

The fix for a bad business climate isn’t more bureaucracy. It’s less. Reducing taxes and regulations help revitalize the economy. If only our lawmakers would embrace those policies more often.

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Jul 19 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • bigislandnow.com
Samsung Electronics America to reduce workforce by 739 in New Jersey, US WARN notice says

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Jul 18 • 5:58 PM EDT • Business • reuters.com
How virtual reality can transform behavioral science and enhance reproducibility

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Jul 18 • 3:00 PM EDT • Science • phys.org
Marco Bassetti on why global entertainment still depends on local culture

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Jul 18 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • reuters.com
Yahoo Sports releases new college fantasy football game

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Jul 17 • 10:20 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Blanche meets with Epstein accusers after demand from Republican senator crucial to confirmation

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Jul 17 • 9:33 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
🙂 Positive (35%)
Kartoon Studios Advances IP-Focused Strategy with Sale of Frederator Channel Network Business

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Jul 17 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
2026 Lucid Gravity Touring review: A strong act 2

Quick, comfortable, roomy, and agile for a large electric SUV.

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Jul 17 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com
Scientists tested 39 sweeteners and found unexpected gut effects

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Jul 16 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
GTA 6 Hacker Moved to Prison for Retrial Two Years After Indefinite Sentence to Secure Hospital

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Jul 16 • 6:39 PM EDT • Technology • ign.com
Giving old sweaters ‘Anu’ life: Greenfield business celebrates one year of upcycling cashmere into new winter sportswear

Greenfield based company Anu recently celebrated its first anniversary since beginning its journey of upcycling used cashmere sweaters into neck warmers, reducing exposure to microplastics and toxins in outdoor wear.

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Jul 16 • 12:01 PM EDT • Business • recorder.com
Introducing: The Swatch Mission To The Moon 1969 Moonswatch

Eleven grams of gold offered in this limited edition of 1,969 pieces, priced as if we were back in 1969.

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Jul 16 • 11:07 AM EDT • Technology • hodinkee.com
Todd Blanche, Trump’s Attorney General Pick, Faces Crucial Hurdle After Rocky Hearing

Even a single Republican “no” vote would block Mr. Blanche’s nomination from consideration by the full Senate, which could sink his confirmation.

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Jul 15 • 3:55 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
One small pen for one giant fee: Buzz Aldrin’s mission-saving felt-tip up for auction

Sotheby’s expects second man on moon’s marker, crucial to Apollo 11 return, to reach astronomical sum

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Jul 15 • 7:48 AM EDT • Technology • theguardian.com
Inside the states' case to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger

Winning a restraining order will be a crucial test for California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and his group. Some observers see the states' efforts as an uphill climb because the U.S. Justice Department last month approved the merger.

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Jul 15 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com
How the failed 2016 coup reshaped Turkiye’s civil-military relations

Takeover bid 10 years ago sped up efforts to expand civilian oversight, experts say, reducing chances of another coup.

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Jul 15 • 2:29 AM EDT • Politics • aljazeera.com
Watchdog science journalism: Crucial yet precarious work, according to study

How do journalists act as watchdogs of science? New qualitative research led by University of Amsterdam media scholar Alice Fleerackers sheds light on the labor-intensive nature of watchdog science journalism, ...

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Jul 14 • 5:00 PM EDT • Science • phys.org
Gavin Gallaher’s UNC Return Gives Diamond Heels Crucial Infield Continuity

Gavin Gallaher went unselected in the 2026 MLB Draft, clearing the way for his return to UNC. His decision means the Diamond Heels can bring back three of their four starting infielders from a national runner-up team.

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Jul 13 • 8:44 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Lakers’ Surprising Jarred Vanderbilt Stance Amid Jonathan Kuminga Pursuit Revealed

Understanding the Jarred Vanderbilt Lakers stance is crucial as the team navigates trade discussions for Jonathan Kuminga this summer. The post Lakers’ Surprising Jarred Vanderbilt Stance Amid Jonathan Kuminga Pursuit Revealed appeared first on HEAVY.

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Jul 13 • 3:15 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Introducing the 2026 Field Fellowship Cohort

This summer leadership program offers students from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs the opportunity to gain hands-on public policy experience through placements at government offices and…

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Jul 13 • 2:43 PM EDT • Politics • latino.ucla.edu
Introducing the new Environmental Science digital resource guide

Explore how Earth’s natural systems function and examine the relationships between humans and the environment.

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Jul 13 • 10:24 AM EDT • Science • onscouting.org