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Chasing Storms for Science
Storm chasers Jen Walton and Anastasia Tomanek, of Girls Who Chase, work with the Doppler On Wheels team to pursue the secrets of tornadoes and hailstorms.
Planting Magic at Disney World
Alumna Neva Grace Brescia, who majored in agroecology and sustainable food systems, has spent the last six months sowing a bit of wonder as a plant science intern at Walt Disney World.
Sounds of music: Surry Barn to host summer concerts
Jazz, classical and flamenco are just a few of the music genres that will be showcased at the Surry Barn this summer in a series of concerts that continues Walter
Several vehicles damaged as fire spreads to Tri-State business
Local 12 WKRC-TV is the local station for breaking news, weather forecasts, traffic alerts, community news, Cincinnati Bengals, Reds and FC Cincinnati sports updates, and CBS programming for the Cincinnati , Ohio area, including Avondale, Blue Ash, Bond Hill, Camp Washington, Cheviot, Cleves, Colerain Township, Columbia-Tusculum, Corryville, Norwood, Delhi, East Price Hill, Golf Manor, Hyde Park, Lebanon, Loveland, Lower Price Hill, Madeira, Mariemont, Mount Adams, Mount Airy, Mount Healthy, Mount Lookout, Mount Washington, Oakley, Over-The-Rhine, Reading, Sedamsville, Sharonville, Springdale, St. Bernard, South Cumminsville, Symmes Township, Mason, Hamilton, Union Township, Walnut Hills, West Chester, Wyoming, West Price Hill, Westwood, Winton Hills, Alexandria, Bellevue, Covington, Crescent Springs, Erlanger, Fort Mitchell, Fort Thomas, Fort Wright, Florence, Hebron, Highland Heights, Newport, Southgate, Villa Hills, Walton, Aurora, Greendale, and Lawrenceburg.
Are plants the key to solving energy and food crises worldwide?
Costas Maranas, Robert V. & Gloria H. Waltemeyer Chair and Donald B. Broughton Professor of Chemical Engineering at Penn State, is developing computer models and algorithms to help scientists better understand, analyze and redesign biological organisms, including plants. In this Q&A, Maranas discussed how recent breakthroughs in modeling, artificial intelligence and systems biology are accelerating their work, helping plant scientists better understand and repurpose plants into fuel, plastics and more.
Jimmy Kimmel, 'Andor,' ABC News and more honored at the 2026 Peabody Awards
Jimmy Kimmel, "Andor," "Dying for Sex," ABC News and more Walt Disney Company programs were recognized for their impactful work at Peabody Awards!
Business People
Dr. Jacquelyn Paykel has been named assistant dean of whole health education at the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine.
White House says Trump is in "excellent health" in results from physical
President Trump's physician said in a letter released Friday that the president is in "excellent health," following a physical earlier this week at Walter Reed National Military Hospital.
Trump Remains in Excellent Health, White House Memo Says
May 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump remains in excellent health, with strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function, the White House said in a memo on Friday, citing results from a medical examination this week. After his visit to Walter Reed National ...
Trump in ‘excellent health,’ president’s physican says
Trump, who will turn 80 in June, is the oldest person to assume the presidency.
Trump’s physician says the president is in ‘excellent health’ and is ‘fully fit’ to serve
Donald Trump’s physician says the president is in “excellent health” and is “fully fit” to serve as commander in chief after a medical exam Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Trump’s physician says president is in 'excellent health'
Donald Trump’s physician says the president is in “excellent health” and is “fully fit” to serve as commander in chief after a medical exam Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Trump’s physician says the president is in 'excellent health' and is 'fully fit' to serve
Donald Trump's physician says the president is in “excellent health” and is “fully fit” to serve as commander in chief after a medical exam Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A r...
Opening Day to Banana Ball: The Evolution of ESPN Wide World of Sports
Since its opening in March of 1997, ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort has hit the ground running, growing into one of the most dynamic sports destinations in the country. Beginning as an ambitious Disney World expansion in the late 1990s, this 260+ acre multi-sports wonderland offers amateur, collegiate, and
Spanish Singer Ana Mena Signs Management Deal With WK Entertainment
Walter Kolm Entertainment announced the signing of Spanish singer-songwriter Ana Mena to an exclusive global management deal, bolstering its Latin music
How Disney World Cast Members Maintain 260+ Acres at ESPN Wide World of Sports
Play ball! But what’s a game without a field to play on? Here at Walt Disney World, we have a team of cast who are growing the game – literally! Year round, the Sportscape (that’s sports + landscape) team maintains more than 30 fields at the 260+ acre ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex which
Ana Mena Signs Global Management Agreement with WK Entertainment
Ana Mena Signs Global Management Agreement with WK Entertainment: Exclusive.
Richard Thomas Reveals Who He Still Speaks to From ‘The Waltons’
The actor played John-Boy Walton in the iconic series.
Richard Thomas Reveals Who He Still Speaks to From ‘The Waltons’
The actor played John-Boy Walton in the iconic series.
Chelsea State Bank Grows Business Lending Services
Airdate: May 21st, 2026 Baseball D2 Districts Northwest vs Western, 5-26-26 | Photo GalleryMay 26, 2026Softball D2 Districts Williamston vs Western, 5-26-26 | Photo GalleryMay 26, 20262026 Selby Track & Field Classic ResultsMay 26, 2026End of Year Report with Napoleon Superintendent Pat DillonMay 26, 2026Chelsea State Bank Grows Business Lending ServicesMay 26, 2026Walton Insurance Group…
Why Presidents’ Medical Information Isn’t a Matter of Public Record
It's not yet clear what details from President Trump's Tuesday physical exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will be shared with the American people.
Is President Trump healthy? What we know about his recent medical exam
President Trump said, "Everything checked out PERFECTLY" after a three-hour visit to Walter Reed. Here are the details.
Is President Trump healthy? What we know about his recent medical exam
President Trump said, "Everything checked out PERFECTLY" after a three-hour visit to Walter Reed. Here are the details.
Why aren’t Democrats talking about Trump’s health?
President Trump visited Walter Reed on Tuesday, raising fresh concerns about his health. From appearing to doze off in cabinet meetings to visible ankle swelling and bruising on his hands, Americans are asking questions — but why aren't Democrats seizing on the issue? The Bulwark's Lauren Egan, Reuters White House reporter Bo Erickson, and The Atlantic staff writer and MSNBC political contributor Mark Leibovich join Katy Tur with reporting and analysis.
Trump wraps up medical visit to Walter Reed with his health under renewed scrutiny
The president spent more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups.
Trump Undergoes a Physical Exam at Walter Reed
President Trump, whose health has been a subject of public scrutiny, will turn 80 next month.
Trump returns to Walter Reed for third checkup in 13 months
“One doctor said, ‘I’ve never seen anybody get them all right,'” Trump said about his three cognitive tests.
Trump, near 80, to have annual physical amid scrutiny of recent ailments
U.S. President Donald Trump, who turns 80 next month, will undergo his routine annual physical on Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, following a year of public attention on apparently minor health issues.
Trump faces questions about age and health as he heads to Walter Reed
Donald Trump built his 2024 campaign on questions about Joe Biden's health. Now, as he approaches his 80th birthday, he faces scrutiny of his own.
Donald Trump Returns to Hospital for Third Time in 13 Months as Health Concerns Grow
RadarOnline.com reports that President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the Walter Reed Medical Centre in Maryland on Tuesday for a routine medical and dental checkup. This marks the president’s thi...
Trump to get "routine annual" medical exam 7 months after last visit to Walter Reed
White House boasts Trump's "excellent health" as questions loom over the medical reality of the oldest inaugurated president.
Trump Set to Visit Walter Reed Hospital for Third Health Checkup in 13 Months
President Donald Trump will see his doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Tuesday, May 26, for his third scheduled health checkup in just over a year.
Lakers begin front office restructuring by hiring 'literal rocket scientist' Rohan Ramadas as assistant GM
The Lakers are shifting gears away from family business under new owner Mark Walter
Trump faces health questions ahead of annual Walter Reed physical
This will be Trump's fourth medical exam during his second term in office, ahead of his 80th birthday on June 14.
Meet DFP Spring Fellow, Nathan Englehart, Washington University in St. Louis -
Nathan Englehart (he/him/his) is a second year PhD student and Richard J. Walter PhD scholar at Washington University in St. Louis. Nathan’s current research focuses on gender and politics (with a focus on men and masculinity), [...]
Trump faces health questions ahead of another Walter Reed trip
President Donald Trump on Tuesday is expected to undergo his third scheduled medical checkup in 13 months, as outside physicians say they have persistent questions about the nearly 80-year-old preside...
Trump faces health questions ahead of another Walter Reed trip
The president trumpets claims that he is in excellent health, but independent physicians say the White House hasn't answered key questions ahead of his third visit in 13 months.
Atlanta Braves’ Walt Weiss Shares AJ Smith-Shawver Injury Update
Atlanta Braves manager Walt Weiss had an update on AJ Smith-Shawver's injury.
Whole Hog Politics: Blue MAGA? Yep. Democrats’ Tea Party? Probably not.
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 am ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audienc…
How to watch Ottawa vs. Montreal in Game 4 of PWHL Finals: Time, TV, streaming
The Montreal Victoire are one win away from being crowned the 2026 PWHL Walter Cup champions. Can the Ottawa Charge stave off elimination again?
Dudamel on his life as he prepares to leave L.A. Phil for New York
As Gustavo Dudamel begins his final weeks in Walt Disney Concert Hall as L.A. Phil music director, he talks about what lies ahead and how he got there.
How ESPN’s ‘Take Back Sports’ is Widening Access to Youth Sports | The Walt Disney Company
Learn how Disney and ESPN are working together so the next generation grows up with access to the benefits — and joy — of sports.
Whole Hog Politics: Idiocracy alert
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audie…
Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge meet in PWHL final: Schedule, what to know
The 2026 PWHL Walter Cup Finals will be an all-Canadian affair between the Montréal Victoire and Ottawa Charge.
Fandom Takes Center Stage as Disney’s Sports, TV and Film Powerhouses Command the North Javits Center | The Walt Disney Company
Disney kicked off its 2026 Upfront with CEO Josh D'Amaro and a sweeping lineup of more than 100 on-stage stars. Here's the biggest news and moments.
The cinema effect: Turning films into a gateway to science
The sci-fi film Project Hail Mary, currently in theaters, is capturing the attention of both audiences and the scientific community for its science-based content. It manages to engage viewers with complex, cutting-edge topics — from astrophysics to language — without sacrificing entertainment. Yet not all films strike this balance. Many, unlike this recent production, have promoted inaccurate or even misleading scientific ideas, and thanks to their wide reach, have contributed to shaping distorted public perceptions of science. Precisely by harnessing the power of cinematic storytelling, Hildrun Walter, Fritz Treiber and colleagues have used films as a tool to foster engagement and dialogue between scientists and the public. Their innovative format, Science & Cinema, described in a new paper published in JCOM, proves both effective and potentially easy to replicate.
Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GWHCC) Business Expo 2026
The Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GWHCC) returns with their highly anticipated GWHCC Business Expo, taking place on Thursday, May 21, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. An event focused on connecting minority-owned businesses with corporate partners, business resources, and networking opportunities. Featuring more than 80 exhibitors, the event brings together entrepreneurs, industry professionals, and decision-makers from across the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to support collaboration, visibility, and business growth.
Did partisan politics influence Dow decision?
Walt Rubel comments on State Representative Rebecca Dow's efforts to get on the ballot for the June primary.
DHA-GEIS strengthens biosurveillance, force health protection during African Lion 26
AGADIR, Morocco — A coalition of U.S. military and research organizations deliver integrated biosurveillance support, strengthening commanders’ situational awareness and directly bolstering mission readiness during African Lion 26, April 20-May 8, 2026. The Defense Health Agency’s Global Emerging Infections Surveillance program coordinated subject matter experts and laboratory partners from Walter Reed Army Institute of Research‑Africa; Naval Medical Research Unit, Navy Region Europe, Africa, Central; the 1st Global Field Medical Laboratory; and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Together they provided pre‑exercise risk assessments, rapid laboratory analysis and real‑time reporting that commanders and medical planners used to protect forces.
Zavion Thomas Already Familiar with Bears Royalty
Rookie Zavion Thomas brings explosive versatility to Chicago, drawing inspiration from return legend Devin Hester and embracing a rumored family connection to the iconic Walter Payton.
‘It has to be bipartisan’: Governors find solutions on maternal health
Gov. Wes Moore (D-Md.), Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.) and philanthropist Olivia Walton join Meet the Press for a Common Ground conversation around maternal health.
Confirmed 2. Bundesliga lineups: Holstein Kiel vs. 1. FC Magdeburg
Tim Walter makes two changes from the victory over Braunschweig as Ivan Nekic and Umut Tohumcu replace Ikem Ugoh and Frederik Roslyng.Petrik Sander makes one change from the win against Hertha as Dari...
Union for hospitality workers calls on Disney to end new business with restaurant company
A labor union representing Disney food workers is calling on Disney not to offer new business with one of its contracted restaurant companies.
Taphouse on Walton owner sues city for lost revenue in entertainment license dispute
Taphouse has not be able to host any events, entertainment, live music or DJs for over a year, which Randall Hon said is hurting his business.
Taphouse on Walton owner sues city for lost revenue in entertainment license dispute
Taphouse has not be able to host any events, entertainment, live music or DJs for over a year, which Randall Hon said is hurting his business.
Whole Hog Politics: Gerrymandering’s upside-upside down Congress
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 am ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audienc…
How Disneyland Remade American Politics
America is turning 250, and The Free Press is marking the occasion with a yearlong series of events, conversations, and stories celebrating our country’s history. Today, we’re taking a journey with historian Beverly Gage to Southern California. Beverly traded the archives for the open road for her new book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History. We’re proud to publish an excerpt, on the theme park that shaped American politics—and the presidents who loved it. —The Editors On July 17, 1955, Ronald Reagan stood near a mocked-up wood-plank town in Anaheim, California, where a 13-star flag flew incongruously over an “Old West” landscape, and introduced the world to Disneyland. He had been invited by Walt Disney himself to co-host the park’s live ABC broadcast, alongside Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings—three Hollywood actors who seemed to embody a wholesome, all-American ethos. From the imagined past of Frontierland, the show leaped ahead to Tomorrowland, set in the far-off year of 1986, emphasizing the technical marvels yet to come: nuclear energy harnessed for civilian purposes, human beings riding rocket ships into space. Disney foretold great things for a 1980s in which the United States would serve as “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” But even he could not predict the most important political fact of the age: that his genial co-host would become president. Southern California was a strange place to build a park about the past, because the region at the time was all about newness and abundance and growth. For a lot of its history, Orange County had been Southern California’s version of flyover country: a vast agricultural expanse between two desirable places, Los Angeles and San Diego. But Disneyland was changing that. Before long, 50 miles south of deep-blue Hollywood, Orange County would become a region famed for its right-wing politics—but also for its mythmaking skills. Those two things, it turned out, went naturally together. ADVERTISEMENT The two presidents Southern California gave America both understood this instinctively. Richard Nixon and Reagan each built a national career on invoking a version of the American past in which the specificities of historical context mattered less than the big picture. For Nixon, progress meant proclaiming a “New American Revolution” on the eve of America’s bicentennial while dismantling the federal programs that had built the postwar middle class. For Reagan, it meant recapturing a lost optimism and an old-fashioned faith in America as an exceptional nation. Both men were less interested in history as it actually happened than in history as it felt—and Orange County, a place that had built itself almost entirely from scratch, turned out to be exactly where the myth of America’s future was getting made. I’m a historian—and historians tend to be myth-busters. With the country’s 250th birthday on the horizon, I figured it was a good time to step out of the ivory tower and check in with the past as it exists here and now, at the museums and monuments and roadside attractions where Americans go to learn about their history. After all my travels—to Davy Crockett’s Tennessee and Texas, to the real Erie Canal, to the birthplace of the American automobile and the actual Old West—I couldn’t miss out on Disneyland, the single most influential historic attraction in U.S. history.
The Green Sports Alliance honors Jason Collins as the inaugural winner of the Bill Walton Global Champion Award
/PRNewswire/ -- Today, at the 2026 Green Sports Alliance Summit in Cleveland, Ohio, the first Bill Walton Global Champion Award was conferred to Jason Collins,...
Genneya Walton Signs With Strand Entertainment (EXCLUSIVE)
Genneya Walton has inked with Strand Entertainment for management, Deadline can report exclusively.
Disney Entertainment revenues up 10% in Q2
The Walt Disney Company has reported that its Q2 2026 revenues increased 7 per cent YoY to $25.2 billion (€21.4bn) in its first published results under new CE
ENTERTAINMENT: Artosphere Festival celebrates art, nature of the region; other Walton Arts Center events set for May
Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center’s Artosphere: Arkansas’ Arts + Nature Festival continues through May 19, featuring a mix of free and low-cost events, performances and workshops throughout Northwest Arkansas celebrating art, music and nature while spotlighting artists and performers from around the region.
Whole Hog Politics: Trump is in the dumps, but Dems still sweating
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audie…
From Antibiotic Discovery to the Role of Religion in Health, Pre-Med Student Has Already Investigated Major Questions in the Medical World
Hailey DeWalt is not slowing down as she approaches graduation
MIRAMAR BEACH BUSINESS OWNER ARRESTED FOR BATTERY AND OPERATING AS A MASSAGE THERAPIST WITHOUT A LICENSE
WALTON COUNTY, FLA— The owner of a massage practice in Miramar Beach is facing criminal charges for a second time after a victim reported being inappropriately touched during a massage. This...
White earns third team Academic All-America honor from College Sports Communicators
WALTHAM, Mass. – Bentley's Taylor White was named a third team Academic All-America by the College Sports Communicators for women's swimming and diving.
Home Entertainment New Releases for April 28 Include 'Hoppers' Digitally, 'The Dust Bunny' on Disc
New releases for April 28 include Disney/Pixar’s Hoppers and Warner’s They WIll Kill You digitally, and Lionsgate’s The Dust Bunny on disc. Walt Disney Home Entertainment will release Pixar’s Hoppers for premium digital sale and rental April 28. The animated adventure finds animal lover Mabel seizing an opportunity to use a new technology to ‘hop’ her … Continue reading "Home Entertainment New Releases for April 28 Include ‘Hoppers’ Digitally, ‘The Dust Bunny’ on Disc"
ENTERTAINMENT: Youth jazz ensemble to bring concert to WAC
The Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society’s All-Star Youth Ensemble makes its 10th-season debut with guest “star” jazz saxophonist Adam Larson, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center.
ENTERTAINMENT: Youth jazz ensemble to bring concert to WAC
The Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society’s All-Star Youth Ensemble makes its 10th-season debut with guest “star” jazz saxophonist Adam Larson, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center.
'The Handyman of West Texas' Optioned by The Hideaway Entertainment
Johnathan Walton's true-crime podcast 'The Handyman of West Texas' will be developed for the screen by The Hideaway Entertainment.
The Hideaway Entertainment Options Johnathan Walton’s True-Crime Podcast ‘The Handyman of West Texas’
Johnathan Walton Media has struck a deal with The Hideaway Entertainment to develop his latest true-crime podcast, “The Handyman of West Texas,” for the screen. Walton is a popular true-crime podcast ...
Special Seminar
Speaker – Lenny Smith, Professor, Virginia Tech. Hosted by Walt Robinson. Title – Reflection versus Regurgitation: Simulation, Statistics, and Insight from Fitzroy to ECMWF’s AIFS. (link to relevant paper) Abstract – There is considerable…
‘Rooster’ Star John C. McGinley Unravels Walt’s Friendship With Dylan Episode 7
Plus, inside that pick for Ludlow's dean.
ENTERTAINMENT: ‘Chocolate’ in Argenta; ‘Mamma Mia!’ at WAC
Following a six-month revival run on Broadway, the 25th anniversary tour of “Mamma Mia!” is onstage this week for eight performances at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center.
It's Your Business has Linda Gwaltney and Emersen Frazier Freeman
News about the latest hires, retirements and more in the Topeka area.
How ESPN Is Bringing WrestleMania 42 to Life Across Sports, Entertainment, and Culture | The Walt Disney Company
WrestleMania 42 — the WWE's biggest event — takes center stage this weekend and here's how ESPN is bringing the show to new fans.
How ESPN Is Bringing WrestleMania 42 to Life Across Sports, Entertainment, and Culture | The Walt Disney Company
WrestleMania 42 — the WWE's biggest event — takes center stage this weekend and here's how ESPN is bringing the show to new fans.
Whole Hog Politics: A Supreme Court vacancy could remake Senate midterms
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audie…
'Avengers: Doomsday' footage, 'Mandalorian' opening unveiled at CinemaCon
The Walt Disney Co. has staged a major presentation at CinemaCon, showcasing new footage from upcoming films. They revealed the opening of the new Star Wars movie and scenes from “Avengers:...
\'Avengers: Doomsday\' footage, \'Mandalorian\' opening unveiled at CinemaCon
The Walt Disney Co. has staged a major presentation at CinemaCon, showcasing new footage from upcoming films. They revealed the opening of the new Star Wars movie and scenes from
Box office powerhouse Disney to show theater owners what’s next
The Walt Disney Co. is closing out CinemaCon on Thursday in Las Vegas. The company dominated the box office in 2025 with nearly $2.5 billion in domestic ticket sales. Hits like “Lilo & Stitch,”...
As a small business owner, I never expected to pay $100,000 protecting my business from ransomware
This is a $131 billion tax on the American economy, spread across small business owners like myself.
Disney’s 1,000-Person Layoffs Claim Entire PR Teams, Specialty Divisions
Disney's 1,000-person layoffs impacted Marvel and several entire divisions of publicity, and some lieutenants of Asad Ayaz.
New investigative newsroom launches at ASU's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism
A new investigative newsroom focusing on accountability reporting, innovation and experimentation with AI-driven tools launches today at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication as part of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.The Beam is a multimedia newsroom that produces in-depth, high-impact reporting on issues that matter to Arizona communities, while building modern tools for the public to engage directly with the decision-makers shaping their lives.
Don't mess with Walt Weiss: Atlanta's new manager is a 'different breed'
Walt Weiss is making headlines in his first weeks as Atlanta's skipper.
Business People
Ann Bordelon is joining the planned STEM university backed by members of the Walton family as vice president of finance and administration.
Atlanta Braves’ Walt Weiss Shares Spencer Strider Injury Update
Spencer Strider received an important update on Saturday.
Seniors: John Lemp, 70
Has been working for more than 50 years in the business — M. Lemp Jewelers in Syracuse — that his great-grandfather started in 1890 By Mary Beth Roach Don Lemp owns and represents the fourth-generation of the family business, M. Lemp Jewelers, but he still calls himself “a counter guy.” “I love interacting with couples. It’s a wonderful business. You’re celebrating marriages, engagements, births, anniversaries — all these different significant moments that people invite you into their lives for whatever brief period of time it might be to help them celebrate whatever their important occasion is,” he said. This is one of several reasons why Lemp, at 70, has been working for more than 50 years in the business that his great-grandfather started in 1890. Always located in the downtown Syracuse area, the store has been situated in the building that the family owns on East Fayette and Warren streets since 1971. He jokes that he’s been in the business so long he is now selling engagement rings to the second generation in some families. He also loves the opportunity to learn about the ever-changing industry and gemstones. “You have to know not only diamonds, but all the colored stones, from A to Z, from andalusite to zircons,” he said. Lemp said he had originally thought he wanted to become an attorney, but while working part-time in the store while attending college at Syracuse University, he decided to follow in the family business. His father, Walter D. Lemp Sr., and his mother tried to discourage their son from pursuing retail, reminding him of the hectic hours and lifestyle intrinsic in this business. But the younger Lemp [whose full name is Walter D. Lemp Jr.] prevailed. So, over the years, father and son got to work together in the family business for 35 years. And while many other jewelers retreated from downtown to suburban malls in the 1970s, the Lemps decided to stay downtown. And it’s a decision that Lemp Jr. feels it has worked out well. As he explained, downtown Syracuse is seeing a rebirth. One website, Point2Home.com, has noted that more than 6,000 people live there and the median income is about $62,000. In addition, according to the website that Lemp built years ago, the store can cater to customers throughout the country. His customers, whether from across the country or across Onondaga County, are just one reason that Lemp stays engaged in the business. His employees, the opportunity to continue to learn in an industry, and the challenge to continue to improve business are all other reasons, he noted. He’s also been able to travel to India to buy diamonds and he enjoys buying and selling estates. “I’d rather gallop in the corral than ride into the sunset,” Lemp said.
ENTERTAINMENT: WAC hosts Australian Chamber Orchestra
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is premiering “Horizon,” a new work it commissioned from Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, on its current tour. It includes an 8 p.m. concert Saturday at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
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The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence sharpened by a jutting black beard. He’s formidable, his aura superior. Holmes opens his biography of the youthful Tennyson by describing the similar formality of the imposing Tennyson statue at Trinty College Cambridge, sharing the honor with other Trinity greats, including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Holmes doesn’t want to chip away at that statue but rather reveal its inner youthful core of the man—tall, handsome, and talented but unformed, emerging from a disturbed family of addicted or insane male siblings and four unusual sisters struggling under a violent alcoholic clergyman father. Alfred was certainly statuesque, but would he end up a block of unformed stone like his equally promising brothers? He was youngest of three equally regarded Tennyson brothers at Cambridge, all bright, handsome, and talented, in fact Alfred regarded by some as less promising than his elders who also wrote poetry. Yet Alfred wrote one of his major poems, “The Kraken,” at twenty, revealing both his talent, his interest in geological forces, and the haunting creature that embodied his anxieties. While Holmes focuses on Tennyson of the 1830s and 1840s, he can’t tell his story without exploring his involvement with the Victorian intellectual upheaval. Tennyson was fascinated by new scientific perspectives, following the latest findings as soon as books and articles were published. He was especially taken with Charles Lyell’s deep studies of geology and the discovery of fossils and a timeline of the planet’s development that did much to question fundamental religious assumptions. The impact of these discoveries is reflected in Tennyson’s poetry and led to the crisis in belief he shared with so many contemporaries. He was especially taken by the cycles of destruction and renewal that informed the struggles he confronted in In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Tennyson was only one of the eventual major figures at Cambridge at the same time, young men just beginning to realize their potential. Charles Darwin was at Christ College, although there is no evidence that he and Tennyson even met as students or later in life. Yet evolution became significant in Tennyson’s thinking and the issues of his poetry. One of Tennyson’s best and most important Cambridge friends was Edward FitzGerald, who became the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and in their on and off relationship served as Tennyson’s harshest critic. FitzGerald was also a friend of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the two of them partying in Paris as undergraduates. That connection led to a friendship between Thackeray and Tennyson. Others who came to play significant roles in Tennyson’s life were Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Tennyson’s deepest friend at college was Arthur Hallam, who at twenty wrote a glowing review of Tennyson’s first poetry collection, travelled on European adventures with him, and fell in love with his sister Emily. Hallam was also regarded as one more very promising Cambridge student. His sudden death at twenty-two in Vienna from a stroke while travelling with his father devastated many friends, but perhaps Tennyson most of all. He did not write immediate poems of grief but took years to compile those collected in In Memoriam A.H.H., published in 1850, almost twenty years after Hallam’s death For all of Tennyson’s early poetic successes and successes, Holmes reveals him as an often troubled young man suffering periods of depression, fearing planetary upheaval, concerned about supporting himself, disappointed in romances, and worried that he would inherit the family’s mental illness tendencies. Yet despite his seeming withdrawals, he was always writing poetry that he kept private and would not let go, constantly revising. 1850 became a transformative year for Tennyson. He finally consented to publishing In Memoriam with a last-minute prologue that acknowledged God and perhaps convinced the religious Emily Sellwood to marry him after years of pursuit.. He opened up to Emily, revealing his struggles with fears of depression and “weird seizures.” The devastating event of that time was the stillborn death of his unnamed first son. It shook him, but Emily’s faith brought them closer and convinced him to believe in an afterlife. Two later sons survived. With the death of William Wordworth in April of 1950, Tennyson was named poet laureate at age forty-one, reluctantly accepting. It’s as if Tennyson’s life split in half in that year. He lived another forty years, now a recognized success, with the prestige of being an official poet writing patriotic verse, wealthy and revered, no longer the insecure young man seeking an outlet for his immense talent. He earned a place in the Authors deck, now dignified and in 1884 elevated to the peerage as Arthur, Lord Tennyson. Richard Holmes is the author of twenty previous books on the Romantics and Victorians, several of which received awards. The Boundless Deep was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He captures the complex vicissitudes of Tennyson’s youth, illustrated by frequent excerpts from the poetry, placing that life in the full context of the shattering discoveries that led to an upheaval of thought in the Victorian age.
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Celtics beat Raptors 115-101 behind Tatum, Brown
Jaylen Brown scored 26 points, Jayson Tatum had 23 points and 13 rebounds and the Boston Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors 115-101 on Sunday. Neemias Queta had 18 points and seven rebounds, and Payton Pritchard scored 17 points for the Celtics, who won their third straight to move closer to clinching second place in the Eastern Conference. Ja'Kobe Walter led Toronto with 16 points, and Brandon Ingram and RJ Barrett each had 15.