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Is Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) Priced Attractive After Sharp Share Price Declines?

Wondering whether Tencent Music Entertainment Group's current share price really reflects its underlying value, or if the market is mispricing the stock right now. The stock closed at US$8.47, after falling 8.3% over the past week, 14.3% over the past month, 52.6% year to date, and 47.7% over the past year, while the 3 year return stands at 13.6% and the 5 year return shows a decline of 41.3%. Recent coverage has focused on Tencent Music Entertainment Group's position in the online...

May 15 • 9:52 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st

Feature: Moore ’26 Keeps Busy with Double Science Major and Music

Luke Moore ’26 came to Kansas Wesleyan on a music scholarship. He’s graduating this weekend (May 16) with a double major in Chemistry and Physics. He’s as active on the music side as he is with his science activities — he’s played the cello for 10 years, including four years at Kansas Wesleyan. It’s common, he said, for scientists and musicians to share those interests. “I’ve spoken to plenty of musicians who would have done science if they weren’t musicians, and I’ve talked to plenty of scientists who would have done music if they weren’t scientists,” Mooresaid. He played the cello in the string orchestra, which he’s done since his first year, and as a junior and senior, sang in the Philharmonic Choir as a bass. He hadn’t sung in a choir since middle schoolin Garden City, but he found he really enjoys that aspect of his college career. Also as a junior, Moore helped re-activate the STEM Club as vice president. For two years, he helped build the club’s battlebot. Last year the bot came home from battles in Kansas City in pieces, lots of pieces. This year it came home with the first-place trophy. He’s helped make frozen nitrogen ice cream at Homecoming and other events and helped organize the STEM Club’s first gingerbread house competition for the holidays. Willing to get his hands – and face – dirty for science, he encouraged fellow musicians and scientists to smash him in the face with whipped cream pies on Pi Day (March 14) as a fundraiser for the STEM Club. His capstone project involved developing a metallic organic framework (MOF) that takes a methylene blue dye out of water. “I’m proud that I was able to design this project, and I was proud that I did end up making the MOF,” Moore said. The professors and attitudes at KWU have made all this possible. “I don’t actually have time for everything,” Moore said. “I have to prioritize things. Things inevitably fall through the cracks, but it’s hard for me to choose one over the other, because I like a lot of things. And I don’t want to not do music, and I don’t want to not do science.” Moore said that Kansas Wesleyan, as a smaller university, gives students the opportunity to try things. “If I were to want to be in a music ensemble, it would probably be a bit harder in a larger school. One nice thing about this school is that everyone’s involved in something,” he said. “Professors know that you have other things going on, and they are flexible and understanding.” Moore has applied to grad schools, with an goal of earning his Ph.D. and landing at a university big enough to allow for a small research team that also gives him an opportunity to teach. He’s off to a good start. Moore is receiving the award for Outstanding Research in the Math, Physics and Computer Studies Department at Commencement this year. Story by Jean Kozubowski

May 15 • 4:27 PM EDT • Science • kwu.edu

Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.

Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe

May 15 • 3:04 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com

Exploring the heavens: Vatican Observatory brings science to students - The Leaven Catholic Newspaper

“It was really eye-opening to see all of the work that is being done at the Vatican in terms of science and research.”

May 15 • 1:01 AM EDT • Science • theleaven.org

A year of Trump is backfiring on the religious right

Americans don’t really want “Christian nationalism.”

May 14 • 10:35 AM EDT • Politics • vox.com

First-Generation Medical Student Aims to Improve the Health of Ohioans

Matthew Folkman, who graduates May 15 and then begins his orthopaedic surgery residency at UToledo, knew that he wanted to stay in Ohio: "It was really important to me to give back to a community similar to where I grew up.”

May 14 • 4:00 AM EDT • Health • news.utoledo.edu

Demi Moore on AI in Entertainment: ‘Really Isn’t Anything To Fear’

The debate over artificial intelligence in Hollywood is not slowing down anytime soon, and Demi Moore is now adding her voice to the conversation. Speaking during the opening days of the 2026 Cannes F...

May 13 • 12:51 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

In 'Spider-Noir,' Nicolas Cage gives the Humphrey Bogart version of Marvel's web-slinger (exclusive)

'Spider-Noir' is 'smashing together' superhero TV with film noir, co-showrunner Oren Uziel explains: "We're really trying to make an old Bogart movie. It's just that Bogart happens to be Spider-Man."

May 13 • 12:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Are attention spans really shrinking? What the science says

Digital distractions can undermine our focus, but research suggests that our inherent capacity to pay attention hasn’t diminished

May 13 • 11:45 AM EDT • Science • scientificamerican.com

Do you need more protein? What science says about high-protein diets

Are we really falling short on protein—or is the high-protein craze overblown?

May 13 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • scientificamerican.com

Adam Schiff Accuses CFTC Chair Mike Selig Of 'Duplicitous' Behavior Over Sports Prediction Markets

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Tuesday accused CFTC Chair Mike Selig of contradictory statements on the contentious issue of sports betting in prediction markets. Schiff Says Prediction Markets Violate State Sovereignty In his Brookings interview with Aaron Klein, Schiff described prediction markets as “pretty indistinguishable” from gaming and sports betting. Schiff argued that these platforms bypass state-level consumer protections and generate no public revenue. “It really seems to violate st

May 13 • 4:12 AM EDT • Sports • finance.yahoo.com

Lola Petticrew on 'I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning' and Politics

The nonbinary Belfast-born actor — and THR's next Cannes Rising Star — tackles our universal need for community and the newfound festival trend of apolitical messaging: "It’s a sorry state of affairs when artists don’t really believe in anything."

May 13 • 4:00 AM EDT • Politics • hollywoodreporter.com

Cacti are evolving shockingly fast and scientists just learned why

Cacti may look like slow, stubborn desert survivors, but they’re actually evolving at lightning speed. Scientists studying more than 750 cactus species discovered that what really drives the explosion of new cactus species isn’t flower size or specialized pollinators, but how quickly cactus flowers change shape over time. The finding overturns a long-standing idea dating back to Darwin and reveals deserts as surprisingly dynamic ecosystems where evolution is happening fast.

May 12 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

It’s not where you think: men’s “G-spot” mystery finally solved - Futura-Sciences

Unraveling the Myths: Is the Glans Really the Most Sensitive Part? For years, researchers have maintained that the glans (head) of the penis is the most sensitive area when it comes to sexual sensation. This was considered common wisdom in the urological community. But a recent study published in the...

May 12 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com

NBC News Aims to Steer Business Coverage Beyond Stocks, Bonds

NBC News really means business this time. The NBCUniversal-backed journalism outlet is launching a new concept that will feature deep conversations with executives whose companies exert a strong influ...

May 12 • 7:00 AM EDT • Business • yahoo.com

A warning from the UK for America’s political class

Americans are only a little less satisfied with our system of government than the people of South Africa, which is really saying something, given that South Africans as a whole are about half as sa…

May 12 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • thehill.com

The Claude Delusion

If you asked philosophers what the most mysterious thing about the mind is, most of them would say: consciousness. It’s just a really weird thing. An exhaustive physical description of a brain state doesn’t obviously tell us anything about why that state would be associated with the experience of tasting strawberry rather than the experience…

May 11 • 12:40 PM EDT • Technology • defector.com

Is 'Citizen Kane' really the greatest film of all time?

LOS ANGELES — In May 1941, it premiered in a New York cinema, only to become an initial flop. Today, 85 years later, "Citizen Kane" is considered by many to

May 11 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • recorderonline.com

'Can it really be clear and obvious?'

In Sunday's critical encounter between West Ham and Arsenal he was presented with a decision that could decide the fate of two clubs. England spent two minutes 41 seconds poring over every angle of the footage, checking the possible foul, the potential penalties. Arsenal have been the kings of it all season, crowding and surrounding goalkeepers at corners, finding ways to create space and score goals from set-pieces.

May 11 • 3:33 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Could Red Light Actually Heal Your Brain? What the Science Really Says

Red light therapy may do far more than clear skin — emerging science points to real benefits for inflammation, cognition, and cellular health.

May 11 • 3:32 AM EDT • Science • onegreenplanet.org

Rooney praises 'really good' VAR call in Arsenal win

Former England and Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney believes the video assistant referee "did a really good job" in disallowing West Ham's late equaliser against Arsenal.

May 11 • 1:08 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Guardians Drop Game 2 to the Twins 2-1

That was a really tough loss for the Guardians. They had so many opportunities to win that game and they just could not do it. I look back at the bottom of the 10th, Chase DeLauter had a lineout with an expected batting average of .520. Then Daniel Schneeman lined out with an expected batting […]

May 10 • 12:01 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Is Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT) Pricing Reflect A 54% Year To Date Share Price Slide

If you are wondering whether Flutter Entertainment's current share price really reflects what you are getting for your money, this article breaks down how the stock looks on several valuation yardsticks. After closing at US$101.20, the stock has seen a 6.2% decline over the past week, a 2.3% decline over the last month, and a 53.6% decline year to date. It has also declined 58.0% over the last year and 49.0% and 43.1% over the past 3 and 5 years respectively. Recent coverage has focused on...

May 9 • 10:44 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st

Hapless Tigers Drop Another One In Kansas City

I’m almost at a loss for words. It’s truly shocking just how awful they look right now. Michael Wacha is a fine pitcher; in fact, he said he's had a bit of a career resurgence over the last several seasons. I gotta give him a lot of credit because he was one of those guys that really seemed like he was going through it for a while after starting his career off hot. He’s a very well-respected veteran presence, but he’s not a Cy Young caliber guy, except for when he pitches against Detroit.

May 9 • 9:21 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Jays Crush Angels

Angels 1 Blue Jays 14 The only inning that really mattered was the fifth. The Jays scored seven runs in the bottom of the inning and that was more than enough. But the Jays added six more runs in the seventh and eighth. Trey Yesavage was good enough, for four innings. He allowed four hits, […]

May 9 • 6:18 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Joseph Fiennes on parenting, politics and banning children from social media: ‘Stand up, Keir, this is your kids’ generation’

He’s played English titans from William Shakespeare to Gareth Southgate, but what does the actor really think about the country today?

May 9 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

What is the new action park with giant slides in Knoxville really like

Knox News was among the first to try out the new attraction featuring giant indoor slides and other gravity-defying activities for kids of all ages.

May 9 • 5:04 AM EDT • Entertainment • knoxnews.com

Gov. DeSantis sign legislation banning Floridians' surrogacy contracts with Chinese, Russian citizens

'China ships people here for birth. It's really a seedy thing.'

May 8 • 6:03 PM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Breece Hall’s $45.75 million Jets payday ‘really hit different’

Breece Hall was in his feels after inking a $45 million extension with the Jets on Friday, which allowed him to avoid playing on the franchise tag.

May 8 • 5:16 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

The Science of Workplace Behavior

When performance issues look like people problems, they’re often really system problems—and this post shows how to spot the difference before you try to fix the wrong thing.

May 8 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • psychologytoday.com

Peoria entertainment company hopes to offer signature cocktails at shows

“We'd like to do some cocktails because that would be really fun to have signature cocktails for each show.\

May 8 • 4:13 AM EDT • Entertainment • pjstar.com

Can houseplants really purify the air in your home? What the science actually says

The question sounds simple. The answer, once you examine the actual measurement science behind it, is more interesting than either "yes" or "no."

May 7 • 8:20 PM EDT • Science • phys.org

Is It Time To Reassess Six Flags Entertainment (FUN) After Its Recent Share Price Rebound?

If you are wondering whether Six Flags Entertainment is attractively priced today or a potential value trap in disguise, this article breaks down what the current share price is really offering you. The stock last closed at US$19.69, with returns of 9.3% over the past week, 10.1% over the past month, 27.1% year to date, and a 45.5% decline over the past year as well as 52.2% and 54.1% declines over the last 3 and 5 years. Recent headlines around Six Flags Entertainment have focused on its...

May 7 • 5:43 PM EDT • Entertainment • simplywall.st

How Much Microplastic Is Really In The Human Brain? Here's The Science Behind The Headlines

"This is a research field in its infancy, while the general public is being fed with sensational scraps of information."

May 7 • 10:35 AM EDT • Science • iflscience.com

Get tickets to Business Report’s Women’s Leadership Symposium for revealing conversations about what transformation really looks like

If there’s one thing the past few years have made clear, it’s that the ability to adapt isn’t just an advantage—it’s survival. Business Report‘s 2026 Women’s Leadership Symposium is built around exactly that reality. Get tickets and additional details about the Women’s Leadership Symposium and the Influential Women in Business celebration here. Themed “The Power of […]

May 7 • 10:19 AM EDT • Business • 225batonrouge.com

Can houseplants really purify the air in your home? What the science actually says

How those claims about the air purifying qualities of plants stack up.

May 7 • 8:34 AM EDT • Science • theconversation.com

Is the FDA Really Suppressing Science? Plus. . .

It’s Thursday, May 7. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Aaron MacLean says Trump is poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the Iran war. Joe Klein on the life of CNN founder Ted Turner. Jillian Lederman on why cruise ships are here to stay. And much more. But first: Is the FDA suppressing science? On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story with an alarming takeaway. “FDA Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe,” read the headline. It is the latest in a string of stories that all have the same message: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other agencies, are engaged in a cover-up—and silencing scientists trying to get the word out about the Covid vaccine. What all these stories suggest—some more subtly than others—is that the outsiders now running the public health establishment, officials such as Marty Makary at the FDA and Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institutes of Health, are on a revenge tour. That they are doing harm to the country to get back at the scientists and bureaucrats who ostracized them for deviating from the public-health consensus during the pandemic. It’s a seductive narrative. But is it true? That’s the question we address in our latest editorial. —The Editors Read [ Marty Makary's FDA Has All the Right Enemies ](https://www.thefp.com/p/marty-makary-vaccine-study-fda) [ Trump Blinks First ](https://www.thefp.com/p/iran-peace-deal-pakistan-trump-strait-of-hormuz) Aaron MacLean In return for no detectable concessions, President Trump this week gave up on forcing open the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the Trump administration looks desperate for a deal to end the war with Iran. It’s easy to understand the desire to end the war, but are they blowing the chance at victory? Aaron MacLean makes sense of the administration’s latest moves—and Iran’s response—in his column today. Read full story Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson: Live in New York City Join Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson on May 19 for a live recording of School of War at the iconic New York Historical. In a conversation as timely as it is wide-ranging, Aaron and Niall will explore the strategic stakes of the moment, including the Middle East, China, and the future of American leadership on the global stage. Get Tickets Now [ Ted Turner, the Optimist Who Built CNN ](https://www.thefp.com/p/ted-turner-cnn-tribute) Joe Klein The man who gave us CNN and the 24-hour news cycle, Ted Turner, died Wednesday at the age of 87. Today, political writer Joe Klein—who almost ghostwrote Turner’s autobiography—remembers his friend, the American media mogul who stood out for his idealism and lack of a filter—something that got Turner in trouble more than once. “His was not a traditional intelligence, but one of horizon: Ted saw things before other people did,” Joe writes. Read full story [ Nothing Can Sink the Cruise Ship ](https://www.thefp.com/p/cruise-ship-hantavirus) Jillian Lederman A viral outbreak on a cruise ship that left three passengers dead has left some people wondering: Are cruise ships on the way out? Not so fast, says Jillian Lederman, who has been on many a cruise herself. Read her piece on why 38 million people a year take a cruise—and aren’t about to stop. Read full story [ The Great Writers Who Were Terrible People ](https://www.thefp.com/p/the-great-writers-who-were-terrible) Shilo Brooks Throughout history, some of the greatest literary geniuses have also been immoral bigots. In the latest episode of Old School, Shilo Brooks is joined by Eli Lake for a conversation about those geniuses, from Voltaire to Norman Mailer and Roald Dahl—and why we should read their work despite their odious prejudices. Listen on MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS [ Inside the Digital Intifada ](https://www.thefp.com/p/digital-intifada-social-media-hamas-terror) Warren Kinsella Read full story [ This Week in American History: Trump’s Over-Arching Problem ](https://www.thefp.com/p/this-week-in-american-history-trumps-over-arching-problem) Jonathan Horn Read full story [ Humanity Is Still Evolving—and Fast ](https://www.thefp.com/p/humanity-is-still-evolvingand-fast) Razib Khan Read full story THE NEWS Thirteen D.C. Metropolitan Police officers have been placed on administrative leave and could face termination after an internal investigation found evidence that crime statistics were manipulated to make the city look safer. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee previously alleged that former D.C. police chief Pamela Smith pressured officers to skew data. Tennessee Republicans unveiled a redrawn U.S. House map yesterday that would split up Memphis’s black-majority Democratic district, the latest move in a nationwide push to redraw congressional boundaries ahead of the midterms. The effort follows a Supreme Court ruling last week on Louisiana’s districts, which Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton said gave states the green light to redraw maps along partisan lines. Israel struck Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect last month, saying it targeted a commander of the militant group’s elite Radwan force in the city’s southern suburbs. The strikes risk destabilizing that truce at a delicate moment, as Iran and the U.S. report progress toward a deal to resolve their own standoff. The U.S. Air Force is aiming for a Fourth of July delivery of a Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, hoping to add it to the Air Force One fleet in time for the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, Reuters reported. (For more on the controversy surrounding the aircraft, read Jed Rubenfeld’s piece “It’s a Terrible Idea, but Trump Probably Can Accept a Free Jet from Qatar.”) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified privately before Congress that he has no memory of why he and his family dined on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012, according to Reuters. The admission contradicts Lutnick’s earlier claim that he had cut ties with the convicted sex offender well before that visit. Weeks before a former JPMorgan investment banker filed a lawsuit packed with explosive allegations, the bank reportedly offered him $1 million to settle his sexual assault and harassment claims, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed by Chirayu Rana, alleges he was sexually assaulted by a female colleague, subjected to racial discrimination, and forced into a degrading dynamic at work. JPMorgan says the claims lack merit, and the female colleague’s lawyers call the accusations fabricated. A new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows that, for the first time in roughly 20 years, church attendance is trending upward, with more people volunteering and clergy expressing renewed optimism. The study’s authors described the findings, based on a survey of more than 7,400 congregations, as showing signs of widespread recovery from low attendance numbers.

May 7 • 6:20 AM EDT • Science • thefp.com

Lankas turns multi-disciplinary drive at Nebraska Into Hudl career

“I’ve always been super passionate about dance, sports, academics, entrepreneurship and keeping my social life interesting. When searching for colleges, it can sometimes feel like you’re having to settle for less in one area to get more in another. However, as an overly ambitious person, those weren’t really tradeoffs I wanted to make, and I’ve been able to do so much at such a high level all at Nebraska.” — Lena Lankas, May 2026 graduate

May 6 • 8:00 PM EDT • Business • news.unl.edu

Cowboys 'feel really good' about Micah Parsons trade, but re-signing him still would have been the better move

The Cowboys traded Micah Parsons instead of extending him. Here's a full breakdown of the move, what Dallas gained and whether their rebuilt defense can succeed in 2026.

May 6 • 4:34 PM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com

Intermittent Fasting Can Help You Lose Weight, But Science Says Not For the Reason You Might Think

Research shows when you eat really only matters if it means you'll eat less.

May 6 • 7:09 AM EDT • Science • inc.com

The week in politics (May 6, 2026)

On Wednesday's show: We discuss the latest developments in politics in our weekly roundup. And foodies discuss great food that looks really ugly -- but still tastes great.

May 6 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • houstonpublicmedia.org

Samsung Galaxy A37 review: A solid deal even in this economy

The Galaxy A37 isn’t the the flashiest device, but it’s got solid components and a sturdy design for a reasonable price, which is all we can really ask for.

May 5 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • engadget.com

Why Reddit blocked my daily visit to its mobile website

Reddit REALLY wants you to use its app.

May 5 • 7:20 AM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com

Dolly Parton Cancels Las Vegas Residency Due to Health, Shares Update

"I'm responding really well to meds and treatments, and I'm improving everyday," the Grammy winner said, while noting that "it's gonna take me a little while before I'm up to stage-performance level."

May 4 • 3:06 PM EDT • Health • hollywoodreporter.com

837 Health Sciences Graduates Poised to Deliver Care Across Tennessee

Anna Hicks remembers the moment physical therapy started to feel real. “It’s really interesting to learn about somebody else, and that is PT, in a way.”

May 4 • 2:30 PM EDT • Health • news.uthsc.edu

Honey has been used as medicine for centuries – does it really work?

It is appealing to think something as simple as honey could cure a cold or prevent hay fever, but is there evidence to back up honey’s health benefits? Columnist Alice Klein finds that it has legitimate medicinal uses, depending on the type of honey you’ve got

May 4 • 11:08 AM EDT • Health • newscientist.com

"It meant we got the design right": Resident Evil Requiem's producer on the DLSS5 Grace Ashcroft debacle

"The fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn't want to see it changed was a positive."

May 4 • 7:58 AM EDT • Technology • rockpapershotgun.com

The Cost of Gutting Science Is Invisible Yet Enormous

Intelligence agencies often complain that they are judged unfairly because you hear about their failures, not their successes. It’s hard to evaluate anything based on what didn’t happen — even when that’s really the important thing. The problem is just as salient for those trying to create a better future as trying to avert a worse one. When it comes to research, we can see technologies and industries that exist. We can’t see the ones that were never invented because the science that should have

May 4 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • bloomberg.com

Trump has targeted universities and science. But RIT is thriving

“I don't want to diminish the turmoil that we've all had to live through in the last year, and the consequences of that,” says the university's VP of research. But really? For RIT it's been a non-event.

May 4 • 5:05 AM EDT • Science • wxxinews.org

Smart underwear detects lactose intolerance by tracking your farts

A device you attach to your underwear reveals how often you really break wind – and it’s probably more frequently than you think

May 4 • 1:00 AM EDT • Health • newscientist.com

Reactions: “Created very few attacking opportunities”

Ole Book (in the mixed zone): “We put in a very good performance last week and were really hoping to build on that. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to do so. We created very, very few attacking op...

May 3 • 5:30 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

“The Knicks are a really great team,” VJ Edgecombe …

“The Knicks are a really great team,” VJ Edgecombe …

May 3 • 12:35 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Bournemouth 3-0 Crystal Palace: What Glasner said

It was just really overwhelming for us, this match and the win against Shakhtar Donetsk. Overall, Bournemouth were much better. Against a team that presses like Bournemouth, playing square passes around their box doesn't make sense - but that's what we did.

May 3 • 11:31 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

MindsEye CEO Apparently Found Time To Vibe Code An AI Feature

The Build a Rocket Boy co-CEOs could really do with a new PR manager, because they've even managed to upset the die-hard MindsEye community this time

May 3 • 10:22 AM EDT • Technology • kotaku.com

Scientists just discovered what coffee is really doing to your gut and brain

Coffee doesn’t just energize—it actively reshapes the gut and mind. Researchers found that both caffeinated and decaf coffee altered gut bacteria in ways linked to better mood and lower stress. Decaf even improved learning and memory, while caffeine boosted focus and reduced anxiety. Together, they show coffee works through multiple pathways beyond just caffeine.

May 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • sciencedaily.com

Scientists just discovered what coffee is really doing to your gut and brain

Coffee doesn’t just energize—it actively reshapes the gut and mind. Researchers found that both caffeinated and decaf coffee altered gut bacteria in ways linked to better mood and lower stress. Decaf even improved learning and memory, while caffeine boosted focus and reduced anxiety. Together, they show coffee works through multiple pathways beyond just caffeine.

May 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Sahil Bloom on meeting Warren Buffett, why Berkshire bash is unique

Berkshire Hathaway is "in many ways a media company," and its annual meeting boasts a "high density of really smart people," Sahil Bloom said.

May 3 • 7:03 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

‘The reality, for better or worse’: Columbia comp sci students and faculty grapple with AI’s disruption of the field

‘The reality, for better or worse’: Columbia comp sci students and faculty grapple with AI’s disruption of the field ‘The reality, for better or worse’: Columbia comp sci students and faculty grapple with AI’s disruption of the field A field that once seemed like a direct path to stable, lucrative work is becoming less certain under AI, students and faculty told Spectator. By Ria Vasishtha and Arjun Menon May 3, 2026 Shanying Liu / Deputy Illustrations Editor Asia Genawi, SEAS ’29, first encountered artificial intelligence during her sophomore year at her high school in Indiana. Back in 2023, policies on AI varied widely—even within the same district—and some schools had no guidance at all. As Genawi began to see the effects of AI trickle into her classroom, she turned to guidance from her home state’s Department of Education, which she said she found “outdated and inaccessible.” Genawi spent the rest of her high school career dedicated to the issue, including writing a 15-page memo exploring varying AI policies across Indiana schools, which she sent to every Indiana state senator and representative whose contact information she was able to find. She later helped draft a bill that would have required public high schools to establish and share their own AI policies with students in an accessible format. But with so many other bills already awaiting referral, hers never made it to committee. When Genawi arrived at Columbia to study computer science, she found that the gaps she had spent years trying to address in Indiana had followed her there. Many students and professors were also grappling with what AI meant for the field. Across Columbia’s undergraduate schools, computer science has become the most popular major—accounting for around 11 percent of degrees awarded in Columbia College, 32 percent in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and 12 percent in the School of General Studies in 2024. While the number of computer science majors in SEAS grew from 166 to 173 during the 2024-25 academic year, the total number across the three schools fell around 4.5 percent from 393 to 375, driven by declines at Columbia College and General Studies. At Barnard, it has grown to become the second most popular major as of 2025, up from third the year prior. The number of degrees awarded have grown fivefold since 2016. Faculty members and students in the department told Spectator that the surge in the major’s popularity has been driven in large part by its apparent promise of a secure, well-paid career path. However, they noted that the recent rise of generative AI has compromised the sense of stability that once defined the field, even as interest in technical skills among students persists. According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2024, out of 74 majors tracked, computer science had the fifth highest unemployment rate among majors at 7 percent, while computer engineering had the second highest at 7.8 percent. “Anecdotally, people are moving away from CS as a major,” Daniel Bauer, a senior lecturer in the computer science department, said. “They’re still taking some of our classes, right, because they think they need that, but they’re instead majoring in other things.” Bauer described a field that had shifted from what he called a “nerdy outlier discipline” to one that “everyone needs,” a sign that technical skills have become a baseline expectation across industries with the emergence of AI. “A lot of people thought, ‘Oh, it’s a guaranteed path to a stable income. You get a six-figure job right out of your undergrad,’” Bauer said. Now, companies may see AI as a way to reduce demand for entry-level programmers, especially in what he calls “code monkey jobs,” roles where a large number of employees are “just writing out code nine-to-five.” Chris Murphy, a senior lecturer in the computer science department, described the current moment as the convergence of two forces: the downturn of the job market and generative AI coming onto the scene. “Things kind of started to really pick up in 2014, 16,” he said, recalling the years after the weaker 2010 market. Murphy added that this was also a period where “students were getting more experience outside of class than they were inside of class” through internships, jobs, and side projects. Murphy suggested that the earlier momentum helped make computer science feel like both an academic program and a reliable pathway into work. That feeling is harder to sustain now as the industry reconfigures, which is a shift that students are seeing firsthand. Rebecca Yu, SEAS ’27, said that during a recent internship in Big Tech, she saw that “every single tech company was racing to integrate” large language models. She added that her manager said her intern class was the first to complete their assigned projects, which she attributed to the increased efficiency that comes with AI. Frank Liu, SEAS ’29, said that with AI lowering the barrier to coding, companies now expect everyone to write code. “A lot of companies outright say if you’re not using coding in your job, you might get fired for not being productive enough,” Liu said. Yu similarly expressed that students increasingly have to accept AI being a part of industry workflow, adding that many also “make use of it to maximize their productivity.” Richard Li, CC ’28, described a “franticness” among his peers as the pace of change accelerates. He explained how “some new tool” is released regularly, noting that tools rise and fall in prominence within weeks. He has come to believe that he doesn’t need to “match that speed all the time” and keep up with every development. Li has learned that AI tools allow him to “take a breath” and “get back into the loop much easier than before” when he needs to. While some companies specifically target Columbia when hiring, sending representatives to campus career fairs and recruiting large numbers from Columbia, a computer science degree cannot be treated as a static credential, Yu described. “You can’t just get your degree and stop learning after that. You have to always be learning,” Yu said. “That is something you basically have to expect for your job.” AI has not only affected students’ decisions to major in computer science, but also reshaped how the subject is taught. Across departments, faculty members no longer treat work done outside the classroom as a reliable measure of understanding, shifting instead toward in-person exams, quizzes, and attendance checks. While homework once made up as much as 60 to 70 percent of a student’s grade in computer science classes, Murphy said that breakdown has since flipped, with exams and quizzes now accounting for the majority. “The assumption—especially among pessimists—is that they’re using it to do their homework,” Murphy said. “They take the homework assignment. They put it into generative AI. Out comes the solution. Submit solution. The end.” Murphy said that faculty members ranged in their responses from fully prohibiting AI use to actively teaching students how to effectively work with AI. He said he shifted his approach this year after his teaching assistants called his belief that students weren’t using the technology “naïve,” and now permits students to use AI on assignments. His surveys of students in his introductory classes have told a more complicated story than the one so-called pessimists offer: Around 60 to 70 percent of students who reported using AI said they used it to have concepts explained to them, to clarify assignment instructions, to generate test cases, or to create practice questions. “Those are all ways that you might have had a tutor in the past to do that, and now you have this AI essentially as your tutor,” he said. Bauer has taken a different approach, teaching students how to use AI productively without sacrificing the core principles of the discipline. “People who are trained to actually use AI tools productively, while being in charge of designing the overall project, will be very much in demand in the next couple of years,” he said. Over the past year, a working group of computer science faculty has been redesigning the introductory and intermediate programming sequence to integrate generative AI as both a subject and a tool, representatives from SEAS wrote in a statement to Spectator. The effort is “coordinated” across the department, “not course-by-course,” with a systematic assessment of how AI integration is affecting student outcomes underway to shape the next round of changes. The goal, the department explained, is for students to be able to “read, verify, and reason about code, whether they or a model wrote it.” Tony Dear, senior lecturer in the computer science department, is piloting individualized AI feedback in a discrete mathematics course, while a machine learning course is also testing a Socratic AI dialogue system designed to “guide inquiry rather than supply answers,” the statement reads. Beyond individual courses, SEAS funded seven cross-departmental faculty projects in generative AI this past academic year, spanning biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, industrial engineering, and computer science, according to the statement. This phenomenon extends beyond the computer science department. SEAS’ new AI minor, which it announced in November 2025, reflects the University’s attempt to adapt. The minor is specifically designed for noncomputer science majors and aims to provide “essential AI knowledge” while emphasizing practical and responsible use across disciplines, according to the SEAS website. At the center of the minor is AI in Context, a course taught by a team of faculty from the departments of computer science, applied mathematics, philosophy, music, literature, and the Writing Center, the representatives told Spectator. Bauer described it as targeted at students who want to bring AI into fields like economics or biology, rather than as a path into software engineering itself. At the graduate level, SEAS announced a new Master of Science in artificial intelligence in February, with the inaugural cohort starting in the fall. While recognizing how AI has helped them navigate coursework, students also described its rise as isolating, even among members of the Application Development Initiative, one of Columbia’s largest computer science clubs. “As people start to ask AI for questions that they would normally ask students and members, it starts to isolate people” Li said. Alexa Kafka, BC ’27, echoed Li’s sentiment, pointing out that computer science has always been a collaborative discipline with code reviews and pull requests, even as AI makes independent work easier. Despite this, Kafka noted that she hasn’t been to office hours “in at least a year.” Bauer added that faculty are exploring long-term solutions to the assessment problem. “One of the things that we’re trying to do at the department or school level is to maybe move towards computerized testing facilities,” Bauer said, referring to ideas in the department to revitalize computer labs as an alternative to pen-and-paper exams. “We have to accept that this is the reality, for better or worse.” But more exams, students say, does not mean better learning, nor does it reflect how computer science is actually done. “Code is so variable and can be approached in so many directions, there’s never just going to be one correct answer. There can be multiple optimal solutions,” Kafka said. Students also expressed concern that the shift toward exam-heavy grading pulls focus away from the applied, project-based work that better reflects both discipline and industry expectations. ADI has tried to respond more quickly than the curriculum can. Through a vibe coding workshop this past semester, club members said they wanted to help students understand not just that AI exists, but how to use it deliberately. “Vibe coding” refers to the practice of prompting AI to write code for a task or project, and has become widespread enough that ADI felt the gap in formal instruction was worth addressing, according to Sophia Huang, BC ’29. The workshop introduced students to the concept of context engineering, which Shaina Sahu, SEAS ’27, described as not just writing a prompt, but optimizing “the rest of the relevant information that you would feed into the model.” Without that, students said that AI-generated code can fail at scale or introduce difficult-to-detect bugs. Genawi said the shift toward AI has changed what it means to be good at computer science. “I think the shift has kind of gone towards what can you create and what can you do, instead of, what do you know,” she said. Indeed, during ADI DevFest, its annual hackathon, Li said more teams are trying to complete their projects than in years past. While sign-ups have historically outpaced submissions, Li said this is beginning to change because teams “have a tool that completes the vision for them.” While many students see AI as an equalizer that lowers the barrier to entry for coding and technical work, Murphy said it also creates new equity concerns inside the classroom around who can afford stronger tools and who already knows how to use them. “The equity issues I worry about are students who have access to paid versions of things versus free versions of things,” he said. Although popular AI models like ChatGPT and Claude have free versions available, both have paid models that can reach over $100 per month, which output different qualities of code. Murphy also pointed to differences in prior exposure to AI literacy itself. “Students who go to high schools or K-12 education, where they’re taught AI literacy, prompt engineering, context engineering, they understand how to do this, as opposed to students who go to schools who don’t teach that,” he said. “Then they come in, and then they’re somehow expected to know how to use these tools.” For Genawi, those disparities begin long before students arrive on campus. “It’s very interesting to consider how lucky you were geographically,” she said. “To be born where you were is influencing your ability to get access to these spaces.” Students like Yu, though broadly apprehensive about the future of computer science, are not without hope. “I’m optimistic, because I think if you’re truly passionate about CS, there will definitely be a place in the field to do something you want to do,” she said. Senior Staff Writer Ria Vasishtha can be contacted at ria.vasishtha@columbiaspectator.com. Follow Spectator on X @ColumbiaSpec. Staff Writer Arjun Menon can be contacted at arjun.menon@columbiaspectator.com. Follow Spectator on X @ColumbiaSpec. Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter and like Spectator on Facebook. Produced with Spectate by Emily Ta

May 2 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • columbiaspectator.com

Punk Politics/Camp Costume is a fashion exhibition curated by (some of my) brilliant Parsons students!

I have the most amazing students. I teach Fashion Journalism at Parsons, as part of its MA Fashion Studies degree, though I have students of all different disciplines throughout the New School in my class — from fine-art photographers to investigative journalists to textile designers. And I learn about all sorts of fascinating things from them, like that designers are adding faux sweat stains to their garments now (part of a trend piece about “anatomy core”) and that real “French girl style” is actually about being “cunti cunta” (aka loud, rude, too much, liberated). So when I found out that some of my students were curating a fashion exhibition opening tonight(!!!), I just knew that it would be brilliant too. Wearable Art is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe It’s called Punk Politics/Camp Costuming1, and it’s up through May 10 at La Sudestada, the wonderful gallery and concept store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I asked the exhibit’s lead curator, Ella Birney (a talented costume and knitwear designer from Belfast who also happens to be in my class), all about it. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Tell me about the idea of this exhibition and how it came about. Ella Birney: For our Fashion Curation class, we had to pitch [exhibition] proposals to our professor, Jessica [Glasscock], and I really wanted to continue on the themes that I was exploring in my BA when I was studying in London a couple of years ago. My BA was very punk-inspired and very political. Everything I do, as you know from my writing, always has a slight Irish, political twist to it2. So in my BA project, it was looking at knitwear as a conveyor for exploring political identity in somewhere like Ireland, where identity is such a point of contention. And looking at the images that I generated from that project, there was something so camp about the whole thing. Like, it’s so playful and in bad taste to do a political message — like a knitted Union Jack — out of mohair. There’s something very camp about that. So that’s where it kind of became punk politics/camp costuming — looking at how from the 1970s to now there’s been protest through costume and clothing. What was your BA in? It was fashion textiles, knitwear. Very craft heavy, which — craft is never taken seriously either. That’s also a kind of spin [on the punk/camp thing]. The Union Jack knit that you made is included in the show — what is camp about knitting a Union Jack out of mohair? The whole ethos of camp is kind of bad taste, doing things that are tongue in cheek and a bit wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Like, this is a bit silly. Everything I do is like, this is a bit silly. Like, being from the North of Ireland, everything you do is political. So it’s like, everything is going to be looked at in a certain lens anyway, so we may as well lean into it. So the Union Jack was because I come from a mixed marriage — Protestant-Catholic. And in the North of Ireland, that’s still a big deal. And even though I’m a Catholic and brought up in a very like Catholic Nationalist family, there [were] Union Jacks [the symbol of the United Kingdom] on my street. So I was like, then I’m gonna make your Union Jack out of knitwear. And then that kind of all linked back to the punk movement that Vivian Westwood forefronted in the late 70s, [with her stores] Let It Rock and Seditionaries. How did you source your items? Once we decided on this exhibition idea, everyone in the class was put to [think about] what do you think can fit into punk politics/camp costuming and finding designers that fit that brief. Me and my co-curators, Dulcinea Flores and Allison Gramando, made a brief to send out — with a mood board and color stories, stuff like that — and then everyone kind of got to work emailing people. We reached out to other Parsons grads. Even through Instagram stories we’ve been able to reach so many people who were like, Yeah, of course, I’ll write something for this, or Please — let me submit stuff. It actually was quite easy sourcing things. … The Parsons thing gets you quite far. What were some great pieces you got? There’s a Brooklyn-based, nonbinary artist called Buzz Slutsky. I can’t even remember how I found them, but I came across this crazy, shoe thing — they had made all these different shoes out of papier-mâché, and the story behind them is so fantastic, so interesting. They were just so obliging, like, Of course, you can have these for a few weeks. I was really happy about that. And then we have art from a collective here called Art Comes First. And they lent loads of really amazing pieces that just tied everything together. You have your Union Jack knit in the show too. Any other pieces that you made? There’s three of my BA mohair knits. There’s the Union Jack. There’s a mohair with the word “No” — which is based on an old political campaign in Ireland that was “Ulster says no to sodomy.” And then there’s another one that is red, white and blue, like the Union Jack, but has the word “Catholic” on it and lots of holy medals. I’m so happy I got to include those. How many pieces are in the show? Between 49 and 52, something like that. A load of clothing and accessories, shoes. There’s a Brooklyn-based Irish photographer who’s given us photos. There’s also a shopping cart that is an art piece by Art Comes First that has gold knuckle dusters as the handles. There’s also lots of T-shirts, original pins from the 70s and 80s that were from people’s dads. I also brought my record player, and all of [co-curator] Allison’s dad’s original albums so everyone could play records. Oh my gosh! Yeah, it’s cool. Anything else you would like to add? If we get to do an exhibition, why would we not make it political in this day and age? I hope that people come. There’s a lot of history, because it starts back in the 70s. It’s not like chronological or anything, but there are historical objects. I hope people come out of it thinking, out of all the really horrendous decades of the 70s and 80s and 90s, all these amazing subcultures happened. There are horrible political times, but there’s art that comes out of it that lasts. Punk Politics/Camp Costume is on view May 1-10 at La Sudestada, 67 West St. Suite 513, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. RSVP for the opening Friday May 1 6pm-8pm here. There’s also a button-making and patch-making workshop and artist talk May 9. Follow the show’s Instagram page @punkxcamp.parsons. Special shout out to all the students who put on this show: Ella Birney (lead curator), Dulcinea Flores (curator), Allison Gramando (curator), Pierre Sanon (lead exhibition designer), Eliana Daneshvari (exhibition designer), Reilly Lowell (editor), Jess Gayo (researcher/writer), Joyce Gayo (researcher/writer), Maria Magdalena Ugarte Montero (researcher/writer), Cassidy Colarik (exhibition press officer), Shelby Shovein (educator), Sarah Mahnke-Baum (educator), Trinidy Coleman (graphic designer), and Leonie Soravia (project manager). Jessica Glasscock was the faculty advisor. 1 The website is definitely worth checking out. 2 This is true!

May 1 • 3:59 PM EDT • Politics • raquellaneri.substack.com

'Timing is really good': City manager Q&A on exit, 'tiresome' politics

Tallahassee City Manager Reese Goad’s nearly decade long career saw him steer the city during hurricanes, a rare tornado outbreak, a pandemic and more, all amid an increasingly polarized political environment.

May 1 • 5:07 AM EDT • Politics • tallahassee.com

What’s changed about the 2028 Democratic presidential field? Kamala Harris

It’s too early to start really handicapping the 2028 presidential race, but some would-be candidates are already making serious moves.

May 1 • 4:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Could LeBron James and the Lakers really blow this?

Apr 30 • 5:11 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

This Neurosurgeon Studies the Brain Close to Death. He Believes the Soul Transcends the Body.

Does your brain really reveal the metaphysical? Here’s what brain science can—and cannot—tell us about immortality.

Apr 30 • 12:37 PM EDT • Science • popularmechanics.com

Mauricio Pochettino feels 'really sad' seeing Tottenham fight against Premier League relegation

Apr 30 • 6:45 AM EDT • Sports • skysports.com

Can You Really Choose Your ‘Best Baby’?

Silicon Valley-backed companies are selling $50,000 genetic tests to anxious parents, despite shaky science.

Apr 30 • 5:00 AM EDT • Science • nymag.com

Thanks to Musk v. Altman lawsuit, it's now public record that Gabe Newell emailed Elon Musk to get his pal Hideo Kojima a tour of SpaceX and OpenAI

The man really wants to go to space.

Apr 29 • 8:56 PM EDT • Technology • yahoo.com

Viewpoint: A career in science is possible, and worth it

Starting a career in science is exciting, but also demanding, with researchers often faced with intense competition, long working hours and high levels of stress. A pioneer in the field of mass spectrometry, Carol Robinson has been there. She speaks with Science|Business on the importance of creating a supportive environment, particularly for women.Robinson did not wake up one day thinking that she would become a scientist. It was only late in school that she developed an interest in chemistry. “The more you work at something, the more you think, actually, this is fascinating. So, I went much further and deeper than I ever needed to pass the exam. And then I loved it,” she says. “I thought, I’m going to give it my all. I’m going to enjoy it while I’m here. But I didn’t think this would be my career for 50 odd years.”She left school at 16 to become a lab technician with the drug company Pfizer, which is where she first worked with mass spectrometry. Fascinated, she was encouraged to take a part-time degree and then a PhD. She went on to do pioneering work in native mass spectrometry, a technique that is used to study protein structures in their natural state, paving the way for breakthroughs in drug discovery. She also broke new ground by becoming the first female professor of chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and then the first female professor of chemistry at the University of Oxford, her current home.She now wants to show young researchers that a career in science is worth it. “Sometimes, I believe the culture isn’t very encouraging, and that’s something I have worked on,” Robinson says.In 2021, she launched the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at Oxford, whose acronym gives a sense of what she hopes it will achieve. “Maybe it is corny,” she says. “It’s just a reminder that I would like it if we could all be kind to each other and supportive, especially for early-career researchers of either gender, because there’s quite a big attrition rate in science, and maybe it just doesn’t feel like a very friendly place to work.”And yet, a career in science comes with a lot of flexibility. “There are few careers where you have that amount of freedom, to go to conferences, to the library. Just because you didn’t see me didn’t mean I wasn’t working,” she says. “And I’m excited to come in every day. So, I don’t want people to think it’s a terrible place.”Gender equality is also important when it comes to the quality of science as a career. “The more women we have, the better it becomes,” Robinson adds.Imposter syndromeAccording to EU data, women outnumber men in university education but account for just about a third of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem). And while the number of women working as scientists and engineers in the 27-member bloc is on the rise, their representation remains below that of men, at 41%. This discrepancy is even more pronounced in top-tier functions across these fields, where women fill just 20% of positions.Having supervised many young scientists, Robinson sees that women continue to have a greater propensity than men to doubt their abilities, a feeling she once shared. “When I was doing my PhD at the University at Cambridge, I really felt like an imposter,” she says. “I don’t think I ever felt I deserved to be there or owned it and was proud. I just thought I was lucky.” Later on, she adds, “I was always that person who said, I can’t apply yet because my CV is not strong enough.”She has now made it her job to encourage women to break with this imposter syndrome. For example, rather than calling for volunteers to give a lecture in the groups that she mentors or teaches, which nearly always results in men stepping forward, she goes straight to the women, “because I know they won’t push themselves forward.”But the gender gap in science is not just down to imposter syndrome. The “obvious” reason, Robinson says, and the reason that is on everybody’s mind when discussing workplace gender equality, is the balance between work and raising a family. Her own path was to choose between the two, taking an eight-year break after completing a postdoctoral training fellowship to bring up three children. And she continues to advise women not to work part-time while they raise a family. “You’ll just get half the pay and continue to work full-time because you are not able to fit everything in,” she says. “You should be able to have a family and come back to have the career that you want.”The solution is for men to also take career breaks. “That kind of evens it up, so that it’s not such a big thing for women,” Robinson says. “I always encourage men in my groups to do that. I think it’s important to take your share of the duties.”Support produces resultsAccording to the Women in Stem Network, a UK advocacy group, countries with strong childcare systems and equal pay policies retain more women in technical careers. In Europe, these are primarily found in the Nordic region and parts of central Europe.At the EU level, the European Commission asks all Horizon Europe applicant organisations to have a gender action plan in place. Since this criterion was introduced in 2021, the share of women leading consortia has increased to 31%, against 23% in Horizon 2020. Their overall participation, however, has risen just 1%, to 38%. After trying to weaken the requirement for gender action plans in 2025, the Commission now intends to adopt a plan for supporting women in research and innovation.Related articlesCommission scraps plan to water down gender requirements in HorizonHow gender balance can swing who wins Horizon Europe fundingRobinson herself has benefited from three Advanced Grants from the European Research Council. “I was extremely honoured and privileged to get those, because they really allowed me to fuel my passion,” she says. “Without that, it would have been a much harder slog.”Beyond applying gender rules, she says that more work is needed on translational enterprise, where women are, once again, largely underrepresented. The European Patent Office found that only 13.8% of applications were filed by women in 2022. “We have so many more women doing amazing science; why do they feel it’s not a thing to have a company?” she asks.She founded her own spin-out company, OMass Technologies, in 2016, and remains chair of its scientific advisory board now that it trades as OMass Therapeutics. As for research, Robinson is now studying how changes in the brain may be linked to depression, using port-mortem tissue. “We’re hoping to publish soon,” she says. “We had to consult with a lot of people who knew a lot more about the brain than we did. So, we’ve learnt a lot, and that’s always a lot of fun to learn a new thing. That’s what keeps you going.”

Apr 29 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Can NASA and SpaceX really build a moon base in the next 10 years?

Experts say building a lunar colony within the next decade, as NASA and Elon Musk want to, will require finding solutions to problems we don't yet fully understand.

Apr 29 • 12:51 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Scientists just found the Milky Way’s edge and it’s closer than expected

Scientists have uncovered the true boundary of the Milky Way’s star-forming region using stellar “age mapping.” They found a telltale U-shaped pattern showing that star formation drops sharply around 35,000–40,000 light-years from the center. Beyond that, stars are mostly migrants, slowly drifting outward rather than forming in place. The discovery gives a long-sought answer to where our galaxy’s stellar nursery really ends.

Apr 28 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

OpenAI Really Wants Codex to Shut Up About Goblins

“Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant,” reads OpenAI's coding agent instructions.

Apr 28 • 7:45 PM EDT • Technology • wired.com

Claude can now plug directly into Photoshop, Blender, and Ableton

Anthropic is really leaning into creative AI services.

Apr 28 • 12:49 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Who’s really the most profitable insurance business?

It isn’t the biggest…

Apr 28 • 9:42 AM EDT • Business • insurancebusinessmag.com

Your dreams aren’t random. Here’s what’s really happening

Dreams are more structured than they seem, shaped by both personal traits and real-world experiences. Researchers found that the brain doesn’t just replay daily life—it reshapes it into imaginative, sometimes surreal scenarios. People who mind-wander more tend to have fragmented dreams, while those who value dreams experience richer ones. Even major events like the pandemic changed dream content, making it more emotional and restrictive.

Apr 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Things are getting real in Neverland

Five siblings discover that they really can go back to Neverland in Thunder River Theatre Company’s production of the play “For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday.” Performances are planned over the next three weekends.

Apr 28 • 5:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • aspendailynews.com

Matthew Lillard doesn't think 'anyone really likes' him, credits nostalgia factor for his Hollywood comeback

Matthew Lillard joked that no one 'really likes' him. The 'Scooby-Doo' actor credits the nostalgia factor for his Hollywood comeback.

Apr 27 • 6:11 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Heat president Pat Riley says he won't resign or retire after team missed playoffs: 'I'm really pissed. I'm disappointed'

Apr 27 • 2:21 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Trump calls for Jimmy Kimmel's immediate firing

President Donald Trump wrote that Jimmy Kimmel made a "really shocking" statement on his late night show on ABC, which is owned by Disney.

Apr 27 • 2:19 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Local Business Spotlight: The Fisherman's Daughter

Four years ago, Katie and Parker Slanga became stewards of The Fisherman’s Daughter, taking over a business long shaped by local ownership. It was less a reinvention than a continuation. “It’s an honor to own The Fisherman’s Daughter,” said Katie Slanga. “Some really amazing entrepreneurs have been in that business before us and have paved...

Apr 27 • 1:55 PM EDT • Business • wtip.org

Can Collagen Supplements Really Improve Skin and Joint Health? Here's What a Pharmacist Says

Taking collagen supplements can help improve skin and joint health, as it's an important component of skin, and bone tissue.

Apr 27 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • health.com

2026 NFL Draft Grades: Analyzing All 32 Teams' Classes

Every NFL team just added several players to their rosters, but who really got better? Rob Rang provides his post-draft grade for each club.

Apr 26 • 2:09 PM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com

Sam Altman had a millennial moment with Gen Alpha internet slang

The OpenAI CEO, 41, tried his hand at Gen Alpha internet slang and it didn't really go well.

Apr 26 • 12:26 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

John Henry and the Red Sox just settled all family business

Well, there is really only way to describe this: Red Sox owner John Henry, like Michael Corleone in the final moments of “The Godfather,” just settled all family business in…

Apr 25 • 9:53 PM EDT • Business • 985thesportshub.com

Microsoft drops Copilot branding in Notepad for Windows 11 for everyone, but it’s really just a rename

I noticed that Notepad on my production PC was auto-updated, and it no longer has any reference to Copilot, but AI integration is not gone.

Apr 25 • 9:10 PM EDT • Technology • windowslatest.com

What travel sports really cost families — and how to budget for it

“Families are suddenly looking at costs that rival a second mortgage payment.”

Apr 25 • 3:24 PM EDT • Sports • wric.com

What travel sports really cost families — and how to budget for it

“Families are suddenly looking at costs that rival a second mortgage payment.”

Apr 25 • 3:01 PM EDT • Sports • wgntv.com