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Martinez 'back in a few weeks' after operation
Chelsea goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez says he will be fit in a few weeks after being injured in the win at Everton.
‘Magic Mike’ Star Shares Graphic Photos From Secret Health Battle
The actor, whose marriage to Sofía Vergara ended during the 7-year struggle, says he lost 60 pounds in just a few weeks.
Polls are a snapshot, and other helpful things to remember during the midterm elections
With Election Day just a few weeks away — and millions of votes already cast — midterm polls are everywhere. While polling can be a helpful tool to understand the electorate, it's not a crystal ball.
Flu levels low across Wisconsin, health officials urge early vaccination
Health officials saw a small uptick a few weeks ago as students went back to school, but those levels have since come down slightly.
Oregon Universal Health Plan Group Hastens To Meet Deadline
A few weeks ago, it looked like the board tasked with giving lawmakers the template for government-run universal health care plan would get until December to finish its big report. It turns out it had to move faster.
Jayden Daniels fully takes part in practice
Commanders QB Jayden Daniels fully practices after missing a few weeks
Some furloughed Star Wars Zero Company developers are returning to work, studio says
Bit Reactor, the Maryland based company, behind this summer’s well-received tactical combat game Star Wars Zero Company says that “more” of its team is returning to work after being furloughed ahead of the game’s release. This is the studio’s first statement on the matter since Game File’s August report that “most” of the development team had been furloughed—technically kept as employees, but without pay or benefits—a few weeks prior to launch. Some of those furloughs ended this week. “This week, we started the process of returning more of our team back to work at Bit Reactor, an important step forward in our continued support for Zero Company, “ Bit Reactor CEO Greg Foertsch said in a statement. He continued: “Having to ask team members to step away after we navigated unexpected business developments outside of our control and so close to launch was an incredibly difficult decision, but one that was necessary to help us eventually bring as many people back as possible. “This team means a tremendous amount to me, and I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together. Thank you to our fans for the incredible response to the game and for supporting us along this journey. We look forward to sharing more updates regarding Bit Reactor and Zero Company soon.” Game File reported in August that Bit Reactor had retained a small team to work on updates for Zero Company. One person familiar with the situation told Game File that the returns announced today bring the studio’s pay-rolled headcount to more than half of what it had been ahead of the furloughs. That means a considerable number of people have been brought back, but that a fair number also remain without pay. While companies in the U.S. are often legally required to publicly disclose how many people they’ve laid off, furloughs can often be kept private, for a time. The United States Department of Labor requires companies to publicly report mass furloughs if they meet specific criteria, including any expectation that they will last more than six months. For those game makers who remain furloughed by Bit Reactor, it’s now been about two months. For more about Bit Reactor, the furloughs, the studio’s back-story and the ongoing lawsuit that brought this to light, read my August report. [ ‘Most’ of Star Wars Zero Company studio Bit Reactor was furloughed ahead of launch ](https://www.gamefile.news/p/star-wars-zero-company-bit-reactor-furloughs-lawsuit) Stephen Totilo · Sep 1 Last week was meant to be a moment of triumph for Bit Reactor, the Maryland-based game studio founded in 2021 with ambitions to create a great new tactical combat game. [ Read full story ](https://www.gamefile.news/p/star-wars-zero-company-bit-reactor-furloughs-lawsuit)
Saquon Barkley Injury Update: Eagles RB’s Hamstring Timeline Revealed
Saquon Barkley suffered a hamstring injury against the Los Angeles Rams, and it could be a few weeks before we see the superstar running back on the field. Originally entering the league as the second-overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Penn State product hit the ground running, recording 1,307 yards and 11 touchdowns …
Kyle Juszczyk may miss some time
49ers FB Kyle Juszczyk could be sidelined a few weeks after injuring knee in Week 4
Corey Day On Pole at Las Vegas; Full Focused Health 302 Starting Lineup
Corey Day may have seen his championship outlook become cloudier after a run-in with William Sawalich a few weeks ago, but on Saturday, the Hendrick Motorsports driver secured a significant track position advantage ahead of Saturday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Day took his second career […] The post Corey Day On Pole at Las Vegas; Full Focused Health 302 Starting Lineup appeared first on TobyChristie.com.
New legislation targets vacant storefront concerns amid closure of Upper West Side mainstays
Jake's Dilemma, a longtime neighborhood bar, is preparing to close after 32 years in business. The establishment is expected to shut its doors in a few weeks.
Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max Review
It's big. It's expensive. But it's great. I've spent a few weeks with the iPhone 18 Pro Max to see just good a phone it is.
CFP Bracketology: Week 4
Another chaotic week of college football saw eight ranked teams fall and a major shakeup around the bubble as the calendar flips to October. We are barely one-third of the way through the season and the playoff picture looks a lot different than it did a few weeks ago. My playoff picture after Week 4: […]
Nick Bosa set to miss a few weeks
49ers DE Nick Bosa a possible IR candidate after practice injury
Climate change is expanding extreme heat's threat to human health
I was 12 when the worst heat waves hit our home in rural New South Wales, Australia. It was summer vacation, a few weeks after we'd celebrated Christmas. I sat at the kitchen table, next to the sheets ...
Argentina gifts Lionel Messi special jersey for final retirement match
A few weeks ago, soccer legend and World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi announced his goodbye to international soccer . After representing his country for almost 207 games, Messi is now all set to don the blue and white jersey for one final time. Messi, 39, will play his last international match against West African nation Benin on Oct. 6, 2026. […] The post Argentina gifts Lionel Messi special jersey for final retirement match appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Dallas Goedert expected to miss a few weeks
Eagles TE Dallas Goedert set to miss several weeks after Week 2 injury
Panthers' last-minute addition of veteran TE already paying off
Despite being signed just a few weeks before the regular season, TE Darren Waller is already making a big impact on the Panthers offense.
WhatsApp starts rolling out new in-chat search button on iOS
Following a few weeks of beta testing, WhatsApp is now rolling out its new in-chat search button to iPhone users. Here are the details.
Did Eagles violate NFL injury report rules with Landon Dickerson?
Eagles coach explains why guard Landon Dickerson wasn't on the injury report even though Dickerson said he hurt his knee a few weeks ago
What was the real ceiling for this Orioles roster?
Despite all its flaws, Baltimore was in position to make the playoffs only a few weeks ago. Was that ever realistic?
Nolan Arenado leaves D-backs game due to thumb injury
Nolan Arenado's right thumb gave him an issue for the second time in a few weeks on Tuesday.
They played for Celtic
Highly rated youth prospect Mark Burchill made his first team debut just a few weeks shy of his 18th birthday in a shock League Cup defeat at Airdrie, back in August 1998…Mark Burchill, Celtic FC. 2...
Google Photos backup is coming to Samsung Gallery
A few weeks ago, Samsung announced that it would end support for Microsoft OneDrive integration with the Gallery app on Galaxy phones and tablets. Now, it has b
Rebels in the Pros: NFL Week 1
Football is in full swing now, but somehow the fall weather is lagging behind, by a lot. The college football season just wrapped up its official week two and the NFL is now fully underway after wrapping up a high scoring week one. A few weeks ago we ran through the league to see where […]
Fox Cities businesses balance tornado relief with keeping their doors open
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. For a few weeks, countless donations piled up on Destiny Antuna's shop floor. Stacks of canned ...
Apple Releases iOS 26.7 With Security Fixes
Alongside iOS 27, Apple today released iOS 26.7, an update to the existing iOS 26 software. Users who check for new software will see iOS 26.7 as the default update, with iOS 27 listed as an option at the bottom of the Software Update interface. According to Apple's release notes, iOS 26.7 includes security fixes, but it does not have any other features. Apple will eventually show iOS 27 as the main update for the iPhone, but that likely won't happen for a few weeks.
A.J. Brown placed on injured reserve
The Patriots will be missing A.J. Brown for a few weeks.
Official: Julian Etse signs first professional contract at Frankfurt
Eintracht Frankfurt have officially announced that Julian Etse has signed his first professional contract at the Hessen club.The center-back only joined from SSV Ulm a few weeks ago and has since made...
Padres Announce Manny Machado Move During Yankees Series
The San Diego Padres are looking to take the series from the New York Yankees today after a thrilling walk-off win on Friday.San Diego has been battling for playoff positioning this year, now sitting just 0.5 games up on the final wild-card spot in the National League. The Padres have a few weeks left to […] The post Padres Announce Manny Machado Move During Yankees Series appeared first on HEAVY.
The Science Prizes That Make You Laugh, Then Think
Every September, a few weeks before the Nobel Prizes are announced, another set of science awards takes a much less serious approach. They are called the Ig Nobel Prizes, and their goal is simple: honor research that first makes people laugh, then makes them think. The science is real. So are the questions. According to
Camp BHC Sees Magic and Science
Professor Mike’s Science and Magic Show came to Camp BHC a few weeks ago. Who doesn’t like juggling?
Congress averts a government shutdown ahead of the midterms
With just a few weeks to spare, the House approved legislation extending funding through mid-December.
Seattle Seahawks Trevon Diggs’ Role Emerges After Preseason Finale
Seattle Seahawks cornerback Trevon Diggs seemingly entered into a conversation for a starting role after his performance in Friday’s NFL Preseason Finale against the Kansas City Chiefs. Diggs signed a one-year contract for the minimum salary with the Seattle Seahawks a few weeks ago. He originally appeared as a depth option while the Seahawks await […] The post Seattle Seahawks Trevon Diggs’ Role Emerges After Preseason Finale appeared first on HEAVY.
Lions Get Concerning New Injury Update on Isiah Pacheco
Detroit Lions running back Isiah Pacheco’s status for Week 1 is in jeopardy, and it is not for the reason that most fans think. Pacheco has missed a few weeks during training camp due to a knee injury. However, head coach Dan Campbell made it clear that Pacheco’s Week 1 status is not in jeopardy […] The post Lions Get Concerning New Injury Update on Isiah Pacheco appeared first on HEAVY.
Supreme Court clears the way for Trump mail voting order ahead of midterms
The U.S. Postal Service laid out how it would implement the order last week, but time is running short to impose major changes with some states beginning to send mail ballots to voters in just a few weeks.
Edmonton Star Forward Speaks about Coach Mike Babcock
Before Mike Babcock coached a game for the Columbus Blue Jackets, he was dismissed from the organization.Now, he steps into his fourth head coaching job in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers in a few weeks at training camp.According to star forward Leon Draisaitl, this is the coach that the Oilers need to get over […] The post Edmonton Star Forward Speaks about Coach Mike Babcock appeared first on HEAVY.
49ers news: SF trades with NFC South team for linebacker
With just a few weeks left before the new season, the San Francisco 49ers continue to tinker with their roster. Recently, the 49ers added tight end Khalil Dinkins, offensive lineman Doug Kramer Jr., and wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge. On Sunday, they acquired a veteran presence to shore up their defense. The 49ers pulled off a trade , sending running […] The post 49ers news: SF trades with NFC South team for linebacker appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Android 17 QPR1 Beta 9 Update Released for Pixel Phones
The Android 16 QPR1 program is still alive and well and continuing to see updates, even as we close in on its stable release in a few weeks. Today, Google gave us Android 17 QPR1 Beta 9! This...
Preseason injury may cost 49ers veteran CB a job
Nate Hobbs is going to be out "a few weeks" with a groin injury, meaning his chances to make the team will slim before Week 1.
Northwood students explore Midland in Go MAD March
As Midland prepares to welcome students to Northwood University’s campus in a few weeks, some of the city’s small businesses will get face time with newcomers on Aug. 21 for a welcome-back...
Clutch Partner: City business given opportunity to engrave trophy At final World Cup match
The finishing touch to this year’s World Cup came courtesy of a Jamestown business. The FIFA World Cup wrapped up a few weeks ago, and at the end of every match one player was awarded the Superior Player of the Match trophy. This trophy for the final match, awarded to Terran Forres, who scored the […]
Two months since it was "a few weeks away," The Athletic hasn't finished its Dianna Russini investigation
Four months to the day since the controversy first emerged, The Athletic has not yet finalized its internal investigation of its former NFL Insider, Dianna Russini.
The Science Behind the AI Panic Is Shakier Than You Think
A column by Sascha Lobo Is AI making us dumb? So asked DER SPIEGEL on its cover a while ago. After a few weeks of recovery and a therapeutic intervention with the help of my AI, I feel able to respond. That’s a bit unfair, of course; the article itself is more nuanced than the loud cover, the image of a schoolkid with dull prompt questions, or the subtitle: “AI is conquering the schools, and educators fear a disaster.” The short answer to “Is AI making us dumb?” is: no. The long answer is more interesting, and even carries a preliminary glimmer of the spectacular. Unfortunately, it requires a detour into the sphere of artificial intelligence, into the mogul-field terrain of technology assessment, the attention economy, and the destructive virus of cultural pessimism. Along with narrowing the scope to AI’s effects on education and work rather than on intelligence. Because the honest version of the question would be: Does AI help us learn and work, or not? Generative AI, which set off the still-ongoing hype with ChatGPT, has only existed in relevant distribution since late 2022, early 2023. For a technology-driven transformation of people and society, that is extremely short. For that reason alone, research is still in its infancy. And technology assessment is not a fast discipline anyway. Prominent voices from Elizabeth Eisenstein to RAND to Tom Wheeler say we still cannot conclusively judge the consequences of the printing press. Its invention is a mere 580 years back, and some scholars would rather not circulate assessments that might have to be retracted in two or three hundred years. We’re Going Through Growing Pains A phenomenon that already caused upheaval in social media research makes serious assessment of AI’s consequences even harder: the “moving target” problem of LLM-ology, as the linguist Sean Trott called it in 2025. AI develops so quickly and so unpredictably that researchers often end up studying snapshots of the past. There are concepts, from morphological analysis to anticipatory governance, for keeping research, planning, and regulation halfway meaningful anyway. But even with those, universally valid statements are rare. DER SPIEGEL - The German View is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe We should therefore treat findings about the interplay between humans and AI as far more procedural and situational. Unfortunately, this challenge comes at the worst possible time. We are going through growing pains: AI’s everyday impact has grown very large very fast, and with it the longing for guidance. Annoyingly, the body of solid knowledge has not exploded along with it. Experts cannot be moved to broad consensus on even banal statements about AI. Sascha Lobo, born in 1975, is an author and strategy consultant focusing on the internet and digital technologies. Together with Jule Lobo, he explores the debates of the day in the podcast “Feel the News – Was Deutschland bewegt” (”What Moves Germany”). Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says software developers are dying out. Bill Gates considers coders one of only three professions that will survive the AI tsunami. Top tech economists find virtually irrefutable arguments both for and against an AI bubble. The same naturally applies to the structurally youth-hostile debate over whether AI is good or bad for young people. The gap between the demand for insight and the supply of solid knowledge creates an orientation vacuum. This vacuum of AI cluelessness is filled, as the attention economy described by Georg Franck in 1998 would have it, with half-knowledge (funnily enough, often AI-generated), marketing, and self-marketing. After all, infinite money is at stake, along with academia’s best current shot at global fame. But this iridescent froth of interpretation operates more by the algorithmic principles of the digital public sphere than by seriously earned insight. That is why dramatized, fear-feeding claims about AI are so promising. It tempts parts of academia into distorted drivel, and parts of the media then sensationalize the published drivel once more. Was the Research Aimed at a Desired Result? How badly this can influence academia and public perception is demonstrated by one of the most-discussed studies on AI’s effects: “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” The MIT study by Nataliya Kosmyna also gets plenty of space in the SPIEGEL cover story. What was measured and interpreted: lower brain activity in people who write with AI assistance, compared to people who only google or write without any tools. As is common with preprints, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, and it contains substantial weaknesses that experts have sharply criticized. The first round had 54 participants in three groups, the second only 18, who reportedly also came from MIT’s own orbit. There was no preregistration (committing in advance to what you want to find out with which data). In their analysis, Stanković et al. even discovered an opposite effect that the study does not further explain. Some measurement data has not (yet) been published. And the EEG analysis method used is considered too imprecise to support such far-reaching conclusions. The biggest criticism, though, is the suspicion of an activism-driven study. In an interview with Time, lead author Kosmyna said she published the study immediately, rather than after full peer review, because she feared politicians might otherwise decide to put ChatGPT in kindergartens. She considers that absolutely harmful. It is legitimate to hold such a view. It just seems unscientific to approach a study with it, and then to design the setup so that the chance of a fitting desired result remains as high as possible. Ideologies Collide It is not easy to separate genuine AI insights from studies that trivialize and weaken well-founded AI criticism. The same goes for the opposing, AI-enthusiastic narratives, because the pro-AI side works against it with billions in resources. Ideologies collide, fed by egos, PR strategies, moral posturing, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Doomsday marketing makes the search even harder: AI companies can profit from warnings about the dangers of AI, whether through the notoriety of apocalypse narratives or because, in some target groups, danger translates into power. Some seemingly negative findings are therefore quite welcome in the AI industry. If you try to get at the findings presumably less influenced by interest groups, the picture in education seems relatively clear: AI can improve educational outcomes when the right AI is used the right way, namely pedagogically. Simply dumping an AI chatbot into a classroom, by contrast, accomplishes little. Huge surprise. But something else is also obvious: whether they are allowed to or not, kids use AI for school, which is why the controlled integration of AI tools into education is, in the medium term, entirely without alternative. In the world of work, the landscape of findings is more complex and requires more differentiation. A series of serious studies points to an AI effect that suits neither the alarmists, regulation fetishists, and AI opponents, nor the trillion-dollar corporations with their armada of paid scientists, PR professionals, and ecosystems: working with AI helps the inexperienced (at least for now) considerably more than it helps the pros, in certain fields of work, and provided they know how to use it correctly. Missing Domain Knowledge Among the experienced, the professionals, and the high flyers, by contrast, despite frequent time savings, partially negative effects and new problems are emerging. Take the jagged frontier problem: AI solves task A brilliantly and fails completely at task B, even though both look similar even to professionals. Or the verification-cost problem, in which AI’s greater productivity gets eaten up by the enormous effort of checking its output. Or the illusion of competence, because AI makes new domains seem easily penetrable, until you painfully discover that deep domain knowledge is missing. Taken as a whole, the effects of working with AI do lean positive. But the promise that AI works as a turbocharger for everyone and boosts practically everything simply refuses to materialize. The AI magic the world has been feeling since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022 has so far barely shown up in most companies’ numbers. The consulting firm McKinsey has coined a term for this, the “gen AI paradox,” and believes that work processes and corporate structures would have to be rebuilt quite fundamentally to realize AI’s benefits at scale. Reuters just reported that only 3.3 percent of Microsoft’s customers have subscribed to the AI package Copilot. That may be down to the product; in other areas we continue to see soaring successes and new AI triumphs. But after the first quarter of 2026, disillusionment is the word for all too many AI projects at traditional companies: because the promised revolution of AI agents has so far failed to arrive or been postponed, and because of the leveling effect that many of the studies cited here suggest. Against Inequality The societal effects, on the other hand, appear rather encouraging. Many previous technologies operated on the Matthew principle, named for the Gospel verse about giving to those who already have: they tended to reward the more competent and more privileged. AI, however, seems more often to have an equalizing effect once a threshold of access and education is crossed. Some anecdotal insights point in this direction, for example, how an unemployed man in Leipzig successfully defended himself in court in 2025 against fraud accusations from Germany’s federal employment agency — without a lawyer, armed only with ChatGPT. The AI made mistakes and cited invented court rulings, but in the end the man walked away unpunished. And a key capability of artificial intelligence is its capacity to learn: set up correctly and fed with data, it can keep getting better. It is a question of time, or more precisely of AI innovations and training data, until even free AI chatbots write better legal briefs than law graduates with perfect exam scores. Whether that will make anyone dumb is something the world’s press will surely inform us of in due time. Subscribe Leave a comment
Commentary: Heat waves show climate change is here
A few weeks ago, my daughter and I went to Paris to visit family and celebrate her high school graduation. As a marine scientist working on the front lines of
Red Sox Stay Red Hot, Extend Winning Streak
Red Sox Surge Back Into Playoff Picture With 11-Game Winning Streak The Boston Red Sox entered play just a few weeks ago at 37-48 and appeared to be headed toward selling at the upcoming MLB trade deadline. Instead, Boston has caught fire. The Red Sox have won 11 consecutive games to improve to 48-48. The…
BYU’s Three Toughest Tests in 2026
The 2026 football season is right around the corner. Fall camp is just a few weeks away and BYU kicks off against Utah Tech in just over 50 days. With that in mind, let’s scan over the football schedule and pinpoint where BYU will be tested the most. Almost no game on the schedule is […]
UVA Center for Politics talks August primary, early voter turnout
With only a few weeks left until election day, early voting for Virginia’s August congressional primary has lagged behind numbers in the same races two years ago.
Steelers training camp: Projecting the Steelers first offensive depth chart
The Steelers will release their first official depth chart in a few weeks and we take a shot at predicting what the offense will look like.
Last Call: M5 Pro MacBook Pro Remains at Pre-Hike Price But Not for Much Longer
It's been a few weeks since Apple announced widespread price hikes across numerous product categories, including the 2026 MacBook Pro. These new prices are now reaching third party retailers, but there remains one exception at Best Buy, which still has one model of the 14-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro at its pre-hike price. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
CMS Approach to Work Reporting Requirement Won’t Work for People with Substance Use Disorders or Mental Health Conditions
By Deborah Steinberg, Senior Health Policy Attorney, Legal Action Center A few weeks ago, CCF explained how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new interim final rule with comment period (IFR) that went far beyond its authority to implement the new work reporting requirements. H.R. 1 – the budget reconciliation law […]
Katie Couric shares health scare
Journalist Katie Couric describes the terrifying moments when she lost her memory just a few weeks ago. She was diagnosed with transient global amnesia - a sudden episode of memory loss that’s rare. NBC News’ Kate Snow has the story.
Add Lynn Bartels to Colorado’s roll call of legends
A few weeks after the Rocky Mountain News shut its doors forever in 2009, more than 600 Republicans gathered for the state party’s annual Centennial Dinner. Lamenting the historic significance of the loss of one of Colorado’s great daily newspapers, the state chairman noted the presence that evening of former Rocky political reporter Lynn Bartels […]
After trying a Google TV projector, I may never buy another TV ever again
After spending a few weeks with a Google TV projector, I think I may be done buying actual TVs for good. Here's what changed.
CMS Ignores the Law (Again) – This Time Taking Health Insurance Away from Individuals with Substance Use Disorders, Mental Health Conditions, and Serious Health Conditions
Just a few weeks ago, we explained how the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s (CMS) proposed regulation on state directed payments goes far beyond the statutory authority in H.R. 1 to incredibly harmful effect. Now it has happened again. This time CMS has issued an interim final rule on work reporting requirements (the “IFR”) that […]
Android 17 QPR1 Beta 4 Just Released for Pixel Phones
Following the release of Android 17 QPR1 Beta 3 at Google I/O a few weeks back, Google has now given its Pixel phones another update, this time to Android 17 QPR1 Beta 4. In this new QPR1 Beta 4...
French UFC fighter Gane blocking out politics before White House bout
French mixed martial artist Ciryl Gane said he is blocking out the political noise ahead of his unprecedented fight at the White House in Washington.But he admits it will be a unique experience, as it was when he visited the White House a few weeks ago.
The Googlebook launch could arrive with up to 8 devices in total
When Google officially announced Googlebook a few weeks back, they confirmed that major partners like Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer, and Lenovo were all on board for an impressive launch this fall. I...
Biodegradable brain probes eliminate the need for risky surgical removal
Soft and flexible brain sensors that naturally dissolve away after a few weeks could make surgical removal obsolete.
Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for 3% funding target
Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”
Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for better conditions
Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”
Snake Bytes 5/24
Team News Lovullo gave Marte a piece of advice, and he’s been mashing ever sinceMarte, though, asked to move back into the leadoff spot a few weeks ago — “We were winning games then,” Lovullo recalled him saying — but the real difference has been his dedication to getting back on track. “I just said, […]
Apple Preparing New 'Gen AI' Website Ahead of WWDC
Apple is readying the subdomain genai.apple.com, according to MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris, but it does not yet lead to a live web page. This comes a few weeks ahead of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC, where the company has promised to announce "AI advancements" across its software platforms. Apple's website already has an Apple Intelligence page, so it is unclear what the company's plans are for genai.apple.com at this time.
England announced World Cup squad with Beatles-inspired video
It’s not just NFL teams that have something to strive for on social media this month. With the World Cup just a few weeks away, national teams are releasing their squads for the tournament with similarly dramatic announcements. Norway literally got their king to announce the squad. Brazil did it the old-fashioned way by announcing…
Local business fills school’s potholes for free
ARGYLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Tom Genovese has been on the board at Argyle Central School District for over a decade. A few weeks ago, he stopped by Greenough Paving Company to talk about getting t…
Ohio State football is high up on CBS Sports' post-spring college football rankings ahead of a notable team
Spring football has been over for a few weeks for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Will Mauricio Dubon be a Brave in 2027?
Though he’s only been in games for a few weeks, it’d already feel weird without him
Rosemont Adds Another Layer Of Security At Its Entertainment District
The village of Rosemont will likely receive three magnetometers in a few weeks to provide added security at Parkway Bank Park where the community’s annual outdoor concert series will soon begin. DSI Security Services will provide the equipment. The magnetometers will be stationed at three entrances to the entertainment district. One will be located near
Cheryl Lynch Exiting Sony Pictures Television As International Business Affairs Shifts From L.A. To London
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television (SPT) veteran Cheryl Lynch is exiting this summer as the international production group shifts business affairs from L.A. to London. The news comes a few weeks afte...
Yankees reportedly calling up top prospect Spencer Jones with Jasson Domínguez out 'a few weeks'
Domínguez, the 23-year-old Yankees outfielder, had to be carted off in the first inning of Thursday's game vs. Texas
Mina The Hollower Finally Lands On Switch 1 & 2 In Just A Few Weeks
Squeaking into that Spring window
FBI seizure of Fulton County election ballots happened quickly after criminal probe opened, new timeline shows
A newly released timeline from the Justice Department reveals the FBI seized 2020 election materials from Georgia just a few weeks after opening a criminal probe, which experts told CNN is an unusually fast pace for a case of its kind.
Hannibal told not to 'antagonise' crowd at Elland Road
For a few weeks now, Burnley had made it clear Hannibal Mejbri was on the verge of his return from a hamstring injury. This season the midfielder received a four-match ban and was given a £15,000 fine after admitting to spitting at Leeds supporters during Burnley's 2-0 victory at Turf Moor back in October. Being the last name on the teamsheet, it was a long build-up to the inevitable boos which followed "Hannibal" being read out by the stadium announcer.
The politics of Trump's ballroom
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — President Trump was about a half-hour into his second speech of the day, musing about the danger he faced last week at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Saturday night, it was good for one thing. People are loving my ballroom now,” Trump told a crowd last night. “That’s the only thing. They love my ballroom.” Ever since he was hustled off stage at the Washington Hilton last week, after an attempted shooter breached the dinner’s security perimeter and sent guests diving to the floor, the president has argued that the incident is proof for why his White House ballroom is needed. Only his planned $400 million, 90,000-square-foot project, Trump has reasoned, can keep a president truly safe at major events. It’s true that a bunch of GOP lawmakers have jumped on board with new legislation and words of support for Trump’s project. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Rand Paul and other prominent Republicans went on TV to talk about the need for a ballroom. But as we reported at The Washington Post this week, “people” aren’t really changing their minds on Trump’s ballroom. A new Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that most Americans still oppose the ballroom project: 56 percent against it versus 28 percent in favor. The numbers are the same as a poll from last year, the Post’s polling whiz Scott Clement found. Other new polls have found similar margins, too. “I’m just not a giant fan, especially of extravagance,” one independent voter told me. “I mean, in the era we’re in right now, given how much people are struggling, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to spend $400 million on a ballroom.” How we got here The Washington Post has followed Trump’s ballroom project very closely. (My colleague Jonathan Edwards may have written the most total words of any reporter about the project; I may be second.) The project exploded as a national issue after Trump tore down the White House’s East Wing after initially promising not to touch it.1 Historic preservationists sued, and about a month ago, a federal judge ordered a halt to ballroom construction.2 The only way the ballroom could proceed, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled, was if Congress explicitly authorized Trump’s plans. (An appeals court has stayed Leon’s order for now.) The judge’s ruling raised an obvious question: would Congress authorize the project? Keep in mind, “authorization” doesn’t mean that Congress needs to necessarily fund the planned $400 million project; they could just sign off on the private donations that Trump has solicited to pay for the ballroom.3 But GOP lawmakers really didn’t want to talk about the ballroom, we reported at The Post just a few weeks ago. One major reason was the ballroom’s bad polling — not a small detail with many of their own midterm elections looming. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner incident, and Trump’s advocacy, may have changed the political conversation around the ballroom. As this week’s polling shows, it doesn’t seem to have affected the fundamental questions surrounding the project. To put it another way, voters still say that cost-of-living concerns are top-of-mind heading into the midterms. Some Republican and independent voters have told me that they see the ballroom as a vanity project that will help Trump but do nothing for their own lives. It might not help Republicans that Trump has dismissed some of the cost-of-living concerns. He’s described “affordability” as a buzzword manufactured by Democrats whose policies helped cause inflation. “They’ve got one good line of bullshit,” Trump said in his first speech yesterday, delivered at a Florida retirement community known as The Villages. Thanks for reading Dan Diamond's newsletter! Subscribe for free to stay up-to-date on my work. Subscribe Speaking of Trump’s speeches… I’m down in Florida because it’s my “duty week” as a White House reporter — basically, I follow the president wherever he goes. (And then hand the baton off to one of my Washington Post colleagues next week.) As part of my duty week, I’ve spent a few days covering the White House’s reaction to Saturday’s attempted shooting, including officials’ review of the security protocols to protect the president. Trump was restrained in the wake of the incident, addressing the nation from the White House briefing room about the need for peaceful dialogue and trying to lower the temperature. But he’s clearly been itching to get back out of the White House, and I was curious to hear how his Florida speeches would go. And — to my ears — it was an unburdened Trump. Not the one we saw Saturday night in the White House briefing room, but the one we witnessed on the campaign trail in 2024. Loose, dropping profanities, mocking everyone, including members of his team. “We have a man here who knows more about Medicaid, Medicare, medical crap than any human being. Where’s Dr. Oz? Where the hell are you, stand up,” Trump said, referring to Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “It’s the most boring trip I’ve ever made. He’s telling me about Medicare, Medicaid. All I want to do is take care of you, I don’t care. I said, ‘You work out the details.’” I wrote up the speech, as Trump headed to West Palm Beach to deliver more remarks a few hours later. The White House didn’t like my story. Their rapid-response team called it the work of a “total loser”4 and “a miserable TDS-ridden moron.” You can be the judge of whether it’s a fair story or the product of someone afflicted with “TDS.” (The White House’s shorthand for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”) I’ve pasted the story below with a gift link, meaning that you don’t need to be a Washington Post subscriber to read it. It might prompt you for an email address, though. Meanwhile, I’ll be down in Florida for the rest of the weekend, covering the president. It’s TBD whether those stories will be deemed TDS-afflicted, too. 1 Jonathan details the past six months of ballroom fallout, reactions and the implications for executive authority here. I also had a great time talking about Trump’s ballroom and other projects with Australia’s ABC News Daily on a podcast this week. 2 The judge allowed underground construction and national security-related work to continue. But that hasn’t been enough for Trump, who says the ballroom itself is essential for his protection. 3 The ballroom donors include companies like Palantir, Google and Amazon. For transparency, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, where I work. No one has ever interfered with our team’s coverage of the ballroom or our mentions of Amazon or Bezos, and if that changed, I’d speak out. 4 To be fair, I’ve spent the morning working on stories and writing this Substack post rather than enjoying the beautiful Florida weather. So they may be onto something about who’s winning and who’s losing.
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!
Potential headwinds for Ramaswamy as he looks to fall campaign
Ohio's Republican primary for governor is a few weeks away, but there are few signs that the top candidate sees it as a competitive race.
Colorado state legislators must recognize EMS is essential
By Dusty A. Johnson Currently, emergency medical services (EMS) clinicians such as EMTs and paramedics are not listed as essential in Colorado, and that is not OK. A few weeks ago, the Colorado House of Representatives unambiguously passed a bill to designate emergency medical services as an essential service. My bill is long overdue in […]
“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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