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Saudi Arabia sports minister vows affordable and safe World Cup in 2034
Saudi Arabia's Sports Minister says the kingdom will work with FIFA to ensure ticket affordability and fan safety for the 2034 World Cup, amid regional instability and lessons from this year's finals in North America where costs have been a concern.
Cleanup begins after fire destroys homes, business in Columbia [photos]
Columbia Borough residents are assessing the damage after three homes and a business were completely destroyed in a fire that spread through a block in Columbia Borough on Saturday afternoon.
Pedestrians Prefer to Veer Left—and Scientists Have No Idea Why
The bias certainly appears to exist, but scientists still have no idea why it exists.
They're uninsured after Obamacare became too costly. And they're far from alone.
They’re Uninsured After Obamacare Became Too Costly. And They’re Far From Alone.
After congressional Republicans let expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans expire at the end of last year, some families have decided the price is too great of a financial burden and canceled their coverage.
Uruguay XI vs Saudi Arabia – Predicted lineup and team news
Uruguay launch their World Cup campaign against Saudi Arabia in Miami on Monday.La Celeste aim to secure a dominant victory in this Group H opener. Marcelo Bielsa has implemented a high-pressing tacti...
Saudi Arabia vs Uruguay – Predicted lineup and team news
Saudi Arabia kick off their 2026 World Cup campaign against Uruguay on Monday evening.Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium hosts this highly anticipated Group H encounter. The Green Falcons want to secure a po...
Rainn Wilson thinks 'The Office' couldn't be made today because it was too 'politically incorrect'
Rainn Wilson is calling out a 'bias in the media' toward 'liberal policies' for his belief that 'The Office' could not be made today, saying it would be 'too hard to be as politically incorrect as the show was.'
Mets Announce Starting Pitching Plan
After a stint in the minor leagues, the Mets are tapping Tobias Myers as their starter for Monday's game against the Reds.
South Carolina's Oldest Mall Is A Century-Old Hub Of Shops, Boutiques, And Entertainment
Explore Columbia’s historic Arcade Building, South Carolina’s oldest indoor mall, with unique shops, art galleries, restaurants and Main Street attractions.
Multiple homes and a business destroyed in Columbia fire, 8 people displaced
Three homes and a business were completely destroyed in a fire that spread through a block on S. 4th Street in Columbia Borough Saturday afternoon, according to borough officials.
Senior Games draws competitors from across U.S.
Sporting venues across the Columbia area hosted the Missouri State Senior Games this weekend, an Olympic-style tournament for athletes aged 50 and up.
Maryland Science Center marks 50th anniversary; Harbor plaza groundbreaking
WBFF Fox45 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Baltimore and nearby towns and communities in Maryland, including Annapolis, Crofton, Glen Burnie, Linthicum, Pasadena, Severn, Cockeysville, Dundalk, Essex, Parkville, Owings Mills, Towson, White Marsh, Woodlawn, Hampstead, Sykesville, Taneytown, Westminster, Elkton, Perryville, Pt. Deposit, Rising Sun, Aberdeen, Abingdon, Bel Air, Edgewood, Fallston, Havre De Grace, Columbia, Elkridge, Ellicott City, Fulton, and Ocean City.
How video games became a channel for political influence
From China to Saudi Arabia, governments are investing billions in gaming to project influence and assert control
The Adventures of Elliot Producer Explains Why Faie Talks So Much
'I think we may have become a little biased'
Undersea Cables and the Material Politics of Digital Connectivity
A review of Samanth Subramanian, “The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables That Connect Our World” (Columbia Global Reports, 2025).
NJ high court urges officials not to use personal email for government business
The high court ruled individuals can obtain email logs from officials' personal addresses used to discuss government business.
APSU formalizes partnership with University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Political Science
Austin Peay State University (APSU) has formalized a significant new international partnership with the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Belgrade (FPN), one of Serbia's most distinguished university faculties and home to a 21-year-old Center for American Studies.
Haiti has to change its World Cup jersey after being deemed too political
The jersey, by Colombian sportswear manufacturer Saeta, originally included a depiction of the final battle of the Haitian War of Independence in 1803 on its front.
Why better AI doesn't always mean better outcomes
Users who adapt their prompting strategies can capture dramatically more value when generative AI tools improve, especially on tasks that require precision and control.
Your brain built a reality bubble. Literature, science, and philosophy can pop it.
Our brains give us a usable version of the world, not a complete one. A neuroscience and a physicist show why that gap matters for bias, free will, and the responsibility we carry into whatever happens next.
LatAm in Focus: De la Espriella, Cepeda, and Colombia’s Political Divide
Political scientist Dr. Sanda Borda examines the figures and forces shaping the presidential race ahead of the June 21 runoff.
New Jersey business climate still worst in region, according to NJBIA analysis
NJBIA’s 2026 Regional Business Climate Analysis shows N.J. continues to rank last in the region in cost competitiveness and business taxes.
WHO urges targeted action to strengthen emergency workforce capacities for shared health risks across the Asia-Pacific region
At a time when the world is more interconnected than ever, the World Health Organization (WHO) is disseminating a comprehensive regional analysis of shared health risks across Asia and the Pacific, urging Member States to invest in enhancing workforce capacities regionwide to mitigate these risks and ensure health systems are better prepared to anticipate, tackle and withstand a range of crises and shocks. Over 100 delegates from 49 countries and areas in the Asia-Pacific region reviewed results from the regional risk analysis during the WHO-led Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework (APHSAF) Stakeholders Meeting in Malaysia. Synthesizing insights from 21 strategic risk assessments and more than 800 multisectoral experts, the regional analysis highlighted an urgent imperative: countries must proactively invest in emergency workforce preparedness to navigate a landscape where climate hazards, disease outbreaks and geophysical events increasingly overlap. These complex converging crises create devastating, compounding impacts on health systems and communities – reiterating the need for investing in a fit-for-purpose regional health workforce and multisectoral action.Key findings: an evolving risk landscape More than half of the participating countries ranked flooding, cyclones, dengue and pandemic-potential respiratory pathogens as being of high or very high risk, while antimicrobial resistance, landslides and gastroenteritis remain widespread concerns as well. “Given that 51% – over half – of these assessed hazards are deeply interconnected, isolated health interventions are no longer sufficient,” said Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. “Extreme weather events like cyclones and floods directly trigger subsequent disease outbreaks, while environmental degradation – driven by sea-level rise, coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion – fuels health risks across the Pacific. Mitigating these cascading risks requires unified, cross-sectoral action linking environmental, agricultural and public health policies to build true regional resilience.” Priority recommendations for action To address critical vulnerabilities, WHO calls on Member States in the Asia-Pacific region to urgently prioritize the following strategic actions: Bridge workforce capacity gaps. Embed and standardize emergency preparedness within academia to promote regional workforce interoperability. Foster multisectoral coordination. Address ad-hoc taskforce responses and fragmented surge support through formalized contingency plans and standard operating procedures that are frequently updated and tested. Secure sustainable financing for emergencies. Overcome systemic barriers to access dedicated funding for both immediate anticipatory actions and long-term emergency preparedness initiatives. Enable emergency-ready primary health care. Embed emergency management into public health workforce readiness planning. Ensure that emergency planning is inclusive. Establish clear pathways for inclusive emergency planning that actively involves communities most at risk and other vulnerable groups. Optimize communication. Update risk communication and community engagement strategies, aligning them with seasonal risk calendars. Elevating workforce readiness to meet regional health risks While the gaps identified are significant, the Asia-Pacific region possesses solid foundational pillars, including dedicated clinicians, laboratory staff, rapid response teams, emergency medical teams and extensive community networks. However, to adequately address the compounding nature of modern crises, the various components of the emergency workforce must collaborate cohesively. True resilience depends entirely on transforming this currently fragmented workforce into a highly trained, interconnected and rapidly deployable asset. To achieve this, WHO is actively advancing regional workforce capacities through the Global Health Emergency Corps initiative. This initiative – supported by the Gates Foundation and the Institute of Philanthropy – seeks to build a seamless network of emergency workforce across borders and sectors, ensuring that when a crisis strikes, a standardized, well-coordinated and trained workforce is immediately ready to respond. “Scaling up emergency workforce readiness is no longer optional,” said Dr Gina Samaan, Regional Emergency Director for WHO in the Western Pacific. “It is the definitive factor that will determine how effectively the Asia-Pacific region safeguards health and protects lives in an increasingly unpredictable future.” ____________________For more information, or to arrange media interviews, contact: Ara Johannes, WHO Western Pacific Health Emergencies Division: johannesa@who.int WHO Western Pacific Communications: wprocom@who.int
Nearly Everyone, Everywhere, Veers Left When Walking
Researchers are at a loss for why people across cultures and ages, regardless of their dominant hand, have a natural bias toward wandering in a counterclockwise direction.
Leftward Progressives
As their name suggests, Leftward Progressives hold progressive views across nearly every issue area. Deeply supportive of expanding government services and the social safety net, they overwhelmingly support legal abortion and rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. This majority White group is deeply concerned about racial and ethnic discrimination in U.S. society. Leftward […]
Ubisoft Closes Belgrade Studio, 100 Employees Let Go
Ubisoft has closed its studio in Belgrade, Serbia. The shutdown will result in all of its employees being let go.
NJBIA’s 2026 Regional Business Climate Analysis Shows NJ Still Worst in Region
NJBIA’s 2026 Regional Business Climate Analysis, released today, shows New Jersey continues to rank last in the region in cost competitiveness and business taxes for an eighth consecutive year. The analysis, found here, shows New Jersey remains a regional outlier with the top corporate tax rate (11.5%) and highest property tax paid as a percentage of personal income (4.38%). Additionally, New Jersey[...]
Humans prefer to walk anticlockwise, scientists find
From Spain to Japan, experiments have repeatedly shown a left-turn bias, but exact mechanic ‘is still an open question’
Opinion | The Good That Can Come From Platner’s Candidacy
The Senate race in Maine is a chance to do away with inconsistent standards applied according to political bias.
Lawmakers accuse SPLC of fomenting hate, political bias
'Outnumbered' reacts as lawmakers grill Southern Poverty Law Center officials for allegedly fomenting hate, displaying political bias and targeting conservative and religious groups.
CPS unanimously approves budget, discusses Health Science High School
The Columbia School Board met Monday and approved the 2026-27 budget and also talked about a new Health Science High School.
CPS unanimously approves budget, discusses Health Science High School
The Columbia School Board met Monday and approved the 2026-27 budget and also talked about a new Health Science High School.
How ‘Undone Science’ Shaped Chile’s Glacier Protection Battle
A new study examines how
We can create the future of science right now
Paul Litvak is the founder and Executive Director of the Robyn Dawes Institute and a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley. He has a PhD in Behavioral Decision Research from Carnegie Mellon where he studied emotions and the sunk cost bias. Over 15 years in industry, he solved a wide range of challenging technical problems. At Meta he created models optimizing the ad review process. At Google he ran experiments to measure social influence. At Airbnb, he was a product manager leading machine learning teams optimizing search ranking and price suggestions. He also co-founded and led product at Rhythmic Health, a venture-backed biosensing startup, creating an accurate low cost system using a color changing strip and a smart phone to measure salivary lactate. The bottleneck At this point, it is uncontroversial to say that science needs to stop using the PDF article as the unit of knowledge and currency. The unbearable slowness of scientific publishing, the profit motive and margins: I’m not saying anything new. The PDF also sucks because it’s hard to extract structured information, which makes it hard to do evidence synthesis. As a result, we do much less evidence synthesis than is needed. And evidence synthesis ultimately undergirds most policy and medical decision-making. I can see second-by-second real-time odds for any sporting or newsworthy event, but a school board can’t see the best evidence on whether their 8th graders should be taught algebra. As a society, we don’t treat this as an important problem. Again, not controversial. Not only is the problem well understood, but the solution has already been laid out. What we need is AI-assisted living evidence synthesis - (1) an open knowledge graph of atomic claims, (2) claims linked to evidence, (3) assessment and synthesis of each piece of evidence, and (4) continuous updating with new data. What few realize (yet) is that the technical capacity to build this vision for a significant portion of science already exists. Not only that, scientists and startup teams are already building many of these components. I know this because I’ve been surveying the space and talking to many of the builders. There are some missing pieces: for example, evaluations of how well some of the components work. But at this point, most of what’s missing is a fully end-to-end working integration of all of these parts. In the rest of this essay, I’m going to lay out all the parts of a working living evidence layer for science and who is working on them, and propose concrete next steps for building this system. What’s now possible The diagram above outlines the components of a living evidence synthesis platform, including some of the teams working on each component1. Scientific PDFs are processed into claims with associated evidence. The evidence is subjected to a forensic audit, methodological evaluation and robustness and reproducibility checks. Finally it’s given a weight in a continuously updating synthesis. What follows is a description and status of each component and a few of the teams working on them. Document understanding The first thing you need to be able to do is turn an article into structured data. Mostly that means parsing PDFs. There are often multicolumn layouts that confuse non-specialized PDF to text processing libraries. For scientific papers, there is the added complexity of parsing formulas and tables and figures. This is a really hot area - there are startups offering APIs, and it seems like a new open source package gets posted to Github every few weeks. What follows isn’t exhaustive. A package called GROBID was the state of the art for a while, they didn’t update their package for nearly two years until very recently. In the meantime reducto.ai released an AI powered PDF extraction API, PaddleOCR became popular, IBM released a model called Docling, and both Mistral and Gemini created models and libraries. I also know of at least one other well-funded psychology research group working on a paper parser. By contrast, there are few open evals in this space, with no extensive evals for complex table comprehension in particular. Nonetheless, I’m confident this will be a solved problem soon, given the combination of LLM advances and developer interest. Hypothesis level extraction There has been increasing interest in comprehending the extracted text of papers and linking information to evidence for each hypothesis. A lot of work has already been done. Trialstreamer (Marshall et al. 2020) and RobotReviewer LIVE (Marshall et al. 2023) demonstrated automated extraction of trial population, intervention, and outcome at scale on clinical RCTs. PaperQA2 (Skarlinski et al. 2024) and Ai2 ScholarQA (2024) extended this to retrieval-augmented question answering with citation grounding. Elicit, Consensus, and SciSpace operationalized claim-level extraction for end users. OpenEval (Booeshaghi et al. 2026) is the most recent and most ambitious: 1.96 million atomic claims extracted from 16,087 eLife manuscripts using Claude Sonnet 4.5, grouped into ~299,000 results, with LLM evaluations showing 81% agreement with human peer review on a 2,487-paper subset. None of these solutions link claims to test-statistics, as you would need to evaluate randomized controlled trials. This is why I built the evidence.guide API - to extract hypotheses and associated test statistics from behavioral science papers. The best public eval of this kind of extraction I’m aware of comes from the recent SCORE project - they had humans code thousands of psychology papers to extract their claims by hand. It would be extremely helpful to the world if all scientific PDFs were available as structured open data. I’ve been working to make this happen, both directly at Berkeley and through coordination with large entities I can’t yet speak of; as hard as it is to do, I think it’s possible2. Forensic audit A lot of work has been done on forensic audit, but some gaps remain. Of course, for biology papers that rely on images for evidence, there are a variety of tools (notably Proofig and ImageTwin) to spot anomalies. These are still well short of what sleuths like Elizabeth Bik can do on her own, but these tools are constant companions among fraud analysts. There’s someone working on auditing Excel files for anomalies, and a number of teams are automating numerical checks like GRIM and SPRITE, including Scrutiny project, the INSPECT-SR team as well as statcheck. The regcheck team is building a way to use AI to compare preregistrations to analyses in papers, to ensure there aren’t significant deviations. Nonetheless, there are many other kinds of anomalies to screen for, both public and less publicly known. And there are no formal evals for anomaly detection that I’m aware of. Still, there’s a lot to draw from in this space and I’m pretty certain we will be able to scan papers for most kinds of obvious anomalies in the near future. Methodological review This area has been white hot, though I fear for many of the startups in this space, because this capability may become commoditized. There are at least six different AI peer review companies, including Refine.ink, Reviewer3, ReviewerZero.ai, Q.E.D. Science, Paper Wizard, and Isitcredible. Coarse (a pun on refine) was also recently created as an open source alternative. These systems provide qualitative feedback on the content of papers, spotting methodological weaknesses and mathematical errors. They seem to work pretty well, and many academics report bitterly that they exceed the average quality of typical peer reviewers. But there are few evals here either. What evals exist so far involve using LLM-as-judge (circularity problems abound) or comparing against human reviews of questionable quality. What you’d ideally want is an eval that measures capturing known errors in papers3. Reproducibility and robustness Another active area has been using AI agents to automate computational reproducibility4 and robustness5 checks in papers that report numerical results. For more recent papers where data and code are available, AI agents can see whether they can re-run the analyses and produce the numbers reported in the published paper. In addition to a handful of individual academics who have been experimenting using Claude Code for this, the Institute for Replication is a leading group working on building an end to end system. The evals related to this problem are the most mature, with CORE-Bench (Siegel, Kapoor, Narayanan 2024) and PaperBench (OpenAI 2025) available to benchmark agents on this task. There is also work on getting AI agents to test alternative ways of analyzing the data to ensure the results are robust to small analytic design choices. Synthesis This is the most underdeveloped area where significant investment is required. Although some automated evidence synthesis systems exist — for example, otto-sr is building an AI agent to write systematic reviews — none of these incorporate the full range of paper level signals to weight evidence appropriately. Nor is there anything like an eval or a gold standard for a good systematic review. Arguably Cochrane reviews are the closest we have to gold standard human systematic reviews, though I’ve heard academics in the know complain about their uneven quality. A key question for a synthesis platform is how to weight anomalies and methodological issues in assessing the quality of a piece of evidence. This is an unsolved problem and one I’m very keen to work on. Continuous updating There are many pieces of basic infrastructure available for monitoring for new research and initiating updates. OpenAlex is the current open citation graph. Retraction Watch integrated into Crossref in October 2023. Scite tracks how citations support, contrast, or mention prior claims. The Living Evidence Network demonstrated continuous-update workflows in clinical guidelines. Engineering this is a relatively straightforward task. When you look over this technical architecture and all the progress being made, it’s hard not to be optimistic that a living guide to scientific evidence will be built. The stakeholders are ready The social infrastructure for this is starting to coalesce — it’s not just a pie in the sky academic exercise to imagine this coming into existence. Institutions like the Center for Open Science, the Institute for Replication, the INSPECT-SR, the Living Evidence Network and more are all working on scaling work to improve research quality. Funders are also aligned. The Sloan Foundation has funded living evidence work through COS. Coefficient Giving supports the Institute for Replication and COS. The Astera Institute and the Institute for Progress have shown interest in this space. NIH has established an Office for Replication and Reproducibility. Although there are (very unfortunately) serious headwinds in science funding generally, there is an active group of funders interested in metascience. A brief word about what I’ve been doing at RDI. First, as a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley I’ve been actively figuring out how a non-profit and a public university can conduct and make public the results of large-scale academic article data mining. With some of the money I raised from donors, I commissioned a legal analysis of recent case law and publisher text data mining (TDM) agreements in order to understand whether a massive open data mining of academic articles is possible (with caveats, it is). I’ve also been working to bring together stakeholders in this space, and identify gaps. I’ve also been doing some software development in this space, with more to come. A pilot proposal The assumption undergirding all of this is that an AI, given all this information, would make the right judgment about a scientific claim with lots of conflicting evidence, weighing all the factors appropriately. That’s the hypothesis we need to test. Randomized control trial research is the best place to focus on first. RCTs are used to make many of the important decisions in society - from medical trials to public policy changes. And they use a relatively uniform set of inferential statistics with lots of known and available diagnostics. Behavioral science experiments, within the broader realm of RCTs, should be first used as a testbed whose results can be generalized. Because behavioral science is at the vanguard of open science practices, replications abound (there are thousands of them) to serve as ground truth training data. Key Hypothesis Therefore the pilot would test, in behavioral RCTs that have been replicated, whether the quality of evidence for a claim can be used to accurately predict whether that claim will replicate. Secondary Hypotheses Compared to claims that replicated, non-replicated claims demonstrate a greater share of forensic anomalies in their source literatures. Hypothesis level claim and statistic extraction is accurate enough to scale living evidence without onerous human review costs. Replication prediction is more accurate than prediction markets6 or journal prestige. If all the different quality signals we gather do accurately predict which studies will replicate, then we can use that model to score evidence to power the living evidence layer. Why this is informative regardless of outcome If the pilot succeeds, the architecture extends to medical RCTs (where Living Evidence already operates and integration is mostly about claim representation), then to slices of basic biology with stable replication structure. If it fails, the field learns which quality signals are load-bearing and which ones metascience has oversold. Either result is a contribution to knowing what the literature supports. Implications for funders Because this burgeoning ecosystem of builders already exists, a well-informed philanthropic or government funder could play a crucial catalyzing role in bringing this future about. They could play at least three roles: creating open structured datasets, publishing open benchmarks and incentivizing the solving of key technical challenges. First, open archives of papers that the government maintains, like PubMed, could be turned into structured data amenable to large scale metascience and claim aggregation. I know the US government already has an interest in doing this, though some key open questions remain unanswered. How do you determine the best models and systems for accurately extracting information from papers? How can you establish a robust way to allow researchers to flag errors and correct them? And finally, how do you create a legal regime in working with publishers to maximize the scope of available papers? For the latter, a university or a private philanthropy may be better positioned to make structured data publicly available under journal subscription terms or fair use. Philanthropists or government funders could also coordinate to create or commission benchmarks that evaluate whether important problems have been solved. For example, an open benchmark for claim extraction from a range of different scientific article types would be extremely helpful. Ensuring the underlying data are accurate is vital for creating these evaluations. I’ve discussed opportunistically using various human-created datasets for this purpose, but a consistent problem is that errors in human data make it difficult for them to serve as a gold standard. Finally, with structured data and benchmarks available, the government or private philanthropy could use them to incentivize groups to develop machine learning systems that meet these benchmarks. Prizes are one potentially valuable tool for this. For example, you could establish a prize for a system that accurately updates a living meta-analysis for a small set of claims. Prizes are particularly useful as signals of problem importance, and can help create vibrant ecosystems of public and private research—see, for example the role the government played in kickstarting the current work on nuclear fusion. Conclusion The drawbacks of the current scientific publishing system are known. Scientists agree, metascientists agree, philanthropists agree: the published PDF plus citation graph isn’t the right substrate for maintaining a representation of the evidence base in science. The pieces needed to build the alternative either already exist or are rapidly taking shape. The community is forming around exactly this problem, with concrete partnerships and shared infrastructure. A pilot should start on behavioral science RCTs because that’s the slice of empirical science most amenable to legibility, where replication ground truth is richest, and where the failure modes are best documented. What’s been missing is the galvanizing mission to assemble these pieces into something that works. That’s what I’m proposing to build. *** 1 I have a broader field map that I’ll release publicly soon. This is me, building in public! 2 If this is something that you are excited about, please reach out and talk to me. 3 More on this very soon too! 4 This tests whether, given the code and the data, you can get the same statistics as reported in the published paper. 5 This tests whether the results are the same as a paper’s given alternative analytical decisions in conducting the analysis (like outlier omission). Closely related is the idea of a “multiverse” where you come up with many different ways of answering the same underlying research question with the same data, and test whether the results hold in all those alternative methods. There’s been work on the latter as well. 6 Some of the replications, e.g. those from the SCORE project, had paired the experiments with forecasts from prediction markets. So we get to look at this for free.
🚨 Colombia v Jordan line-ups ready
All set for action! Colombia will face Jordan this afternoon to play their final warm-up match for the World Cup, and this time, James will get minutes from the start of the game. Colombia Starting X...
WHO urges targeted action to strengthen emergency workforce capacities for shared health risks across the Asia-Pacific region
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 11 June 2026 – At a time when the world is more interconnected than ever, the World Health Organization (WHO) is disseminating a comprehensive regional analysis of shared health risks across Asia and the Pacific, urging Member States to invest in enhancing workforce capacities regionwide to mitigate these risks and ensure health systems are better prepared to anticipate, tackle and withstand a range of crises and shocks. Over 100 delegates from 49 countries and areas in the Asia-Pacific region reviewed results from the regional risk analysis during the WHO-led Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework (APSHAF) Stakeholders Meeting in Malaysia. Synthesizing insights from 21 strategic risk assessments and more than 800 multisectoral experts, the regional analysis highlighted an urgent imperative: countries must proactively invest in emergency workforce preparedness to navigate a landscape where climate hazards, disease outbreaks and geophysical events increasingly overlap. These complex converging crises create devastating, compounding impacts on health systems and communities - reiterating the need for investing in a fit-for-purpose regional health workforce and multisectoral action. Key findings: an evolving risk landscape More than half of the participating countries ranked flooding, cyclones, dengue and pandemic-potential respiratory pathogens as being of high or very high risk, while antimicrobial resistance, landslides and gastroenteritis remain widespread concerns as well. “Given that 51% - over half - of these assessed hazards are deeply interconnected, isolated health interventions are no longer sufficient,” said Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. “Extreme weather events like cyclones and floods directly trigger subsequent disease outbreaks, while environmental degradation - driven by sea-level rise, coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion - fuels health risks across the Pacific. Mitigating these cascading risks requires unified, cross-sectoral action linking environmental, agricultural and public health policies to build true regional resilience.” Priority recommendations for action To address critical vulnerabilities, WHO calls on Member States in the Asia-Pacific region to urgently prioritize the following strategic actions: Bridge workforce capacity gaps. Embed and standardize emergency preparedness within academia to promote regional workforce interoperability. Foster multisectoral coordination. Address ad-hoc taskforce responses and fragmented surge support through formalized contingency plans and standard operating procedures that are frequently updated and tested. Secure sustainable financing for emergencies. Overcome systemic barriers to access dedicated funding for both immediate anticipatory actions and long-term emergency preparedness initiatives. Enable emergency-ready primary health care. Embed emergency management into public health workforce readiness planning. Ensure that emergency planning is inclusive. Establish clear pathways for inclusive emergency planning that actively involves communities most at risk and other vulnerable groups. Optimize communication. Update risk communication and community engagement strategies, aligning them with seasonal risk calendars. Elevating workforce readiness to meet regional health risks While the gaps identified are significant, the Asia-Pacific region possesses solid foundational pillars, including dedicated clinicians, laboratory staff, rapid response teams, emergency medical teams and extensive community networks. However, to adequately address the compounding nature of modern crises, the various components of the emergency workforce must collaborate cohesively. True resilience depends entirely on transforming this currently fragmented workforce into a highly trained, interconnected and rapidly deployable asset. To achieve this, WHO is actively advancing regional workforce capacities through the Global Health Emergency Corps initiative. This initiative - supported by the Gates Foundation and Institute of Philanthropy - seeks to build a seamless network of emergency workforce across borders and sectors, ensuring that when a crisis strikes, a standardized, well-coordinated and trained workforce is immediately ready to respond. “Scaling up emergency workforce readiness is no longer optional,” said Dr Gina Samaan, Regional Emergency Director for WHO in the Western Pacific. “It is the definitive factor that will determine how effectively the Asia-Pacific region safeguards health and protects lives in an increasingly unpredictable future.” For more information, or to arrange media interviews, contact: Ara Johannes, WHO Western Pacific Health Emergencies Division: johannesa@who.int WHO Western Pacific Communications: wprocom@who.int
Kosovo Seeks to End Impasse With Snap Election: What to Watch
Kosovo goes to the polls for the third time in 18 months Sunday in an attempt to break a political impasse that’s stymied progress toward improving ties with Serbia and gaining more European aid.
CPS board to consider budget approval, safety, smoothies and Health Science High
The gap in the proposed budget for next year would be made up by drawing roughly $11.7 million from reserves.
CPS board: budget approval, safety, smoothies and Health Science High
The gap in the proposed budget for next year would be made up by drawing roughly $11.7 million from reserves.
Colombia’s soccer jersey isn’t just about sports. It’s become a symbol of political division
Colombia’s national soccer jersey has become the subject of controversy during the country's bitterly disputed presidential election.
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.
Mayim Bialik went on a GLP-1. It was a 'nightmare'
Mayim Bialik said she experienced nightmare side effects on a GLP-1. Here's what happened.
Structure fire in Irmo leaves business heavily damaged
Irmo Fire District and the Columbia Fire Department responded to a structure fire on Friday.
Collier gift funds new Columbia business reporting program
Nathan S. Collier’s $2.4M gift will fund a new Columbia Journalism School program to train journalists in business reporting through a weeklong seminar.
The hidden cost of fitting in
Distancing yourself from your identity can cause serious psychological harm.
Rising Serb star Stankovic returns to Inter Milan
Serbian international Aleksandar Stankovic will return to Italian champions Inter Milan, the Serie A club confirmed on Friday.Inter Milan said they had "exercised the buyback clause" to re-sign Stankovic from Club Brugge after just one season.
How Nuclear Science Enhances Seafood Safety in Namibia
Namibia's 1,500 km coastline powers a fishing industry worth over 15% of the country's foreign income. But meeting export demand means meeting strict international standards.
Trump Looms Large Over Upcoming Primary Elections in Washington, DC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Washington, D.C., residents chose a new delegate to Congress and a new mayor in the same election, gas was $1.33 a gallon and George H.W. Bush was president. This fall they will do it again — under starkly different circumstances. As the city heads toward pivotal ...
Football regulator faces 'defining test' over potential Derby investment
English football's independent regulator faces a "defining test" as Saudi Arabian government official Turki Al-Sheikh attempts to invest in Derby County, says Amnesty International.
Chelsea consider €30m deal for Juventus defender Cambiaso
Chelsea are considering a move to sign Andrea Cambiaso from Juventus after the Italian side missed out on Champions League qualification.Juventus are planning sales this summer after a sixth-place fin...
Building a One Health workforce to protect people from zoonotic disease and foodborne illness
From zoonotic pathogens that move between animals, humans and their shared environment to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), driven by antimicrobial use across sectors, to chemical contaminants, food safety is at the centre of the One Health approach. On World Food Safety Day, we highlight those using the approach to address risks to human, animal and environmental health. WHO, together with partners, is committed to strengthening the One Health workforce, including professions such as veterinarians, epidemiologists and food safety officers. However, the approach is only as strong as the systems behind it and the people who implement it – across sectors, services and borders.
What is El Niño and how could it affect weather this year?
A strong El Niño this year, colloquially dubbed a super El Niño, could lead to extreme weather events — from heavy rainfall to exacerbated droughts.
From detour to diploma, Maggie House ’26 earns Business degree
Maggie House '26 returned to Columbia College, earned her Business degree and transformed a detour into a success story.
Auditor General DeFoor Releases Tobacco Settlement Fund Audits for 24 Health Care Facilities in 16 Counties - Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General
HARRISBURG – Auditor General Timothy L. DeFoor today announced the release of tobacco settlement fund audits for 24 healthcare facilities in Allegheny, Armstrong, Bradford, Bucks, Butler, Centre, Clinton, Columbia, Lancaster, McKean, Mifflin, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Susquehanna, Washington and Westmoreland counties. “Our audits ensure hospitals have documentation to support the receipt of tobacco settlement funds before receiving reimbursement for uncompensated care,” Auditor General DeFoor said. The Tobacco Master Settlement […]
A political split in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge
Visit Hood River, as so many people do, and you’ll see on the front windows of many downtown businesses a sign saying: “We are immigrants,” and sometimes next to them signs saying, “No trespassing — no federal agents — agents lacking judicial warrants will be turned away.” Many took care to advertise an April 23 […]
Regional health agency issues measles alert for World Cup
As World Cup fever rises in the Americas, countries are urged to strengthen measles surveillance and vaccination amid ongoing outbreaks across the region.
Human Research, Biotechnology for Advanced Health Fill Station Research Schedule
Wednesday’s science schedule aboard the International Space Station encompassed human research, microbial analysis, and 3D bioprinting to advance health on and off the Earth. The Expedition 74 crew members also worked on spacesuit maintenance and cargo spacecraft duties throughout the day rounding out their shift.
Newcastle Announce Fabian Schar News After 2025-26 Season
Newcastle United have secured the future of veteran defender Fabian Schar just before his contract ended on July 1. The Mapies announced on Tuesday that the Swiss international has signed a new one-year contract through the end of the 2026-27 season, keeping him in tow under manager Eddie Howe for a ninth campaign. Schar joined […]
What nearly 80,000 earnings calls reveal about executive leadership
Leaders who ‘pass the mic’ to their colleagues and show cooperation during meetings are more likely to be promoted to CEO on average, according to new Columbia Business School research.
Scientists reveal Ötzi the Iceman's dynamic microbial world
Ötzi the Iceman died violently roughly 5,300 years ago in the Alpine region of the modern border between Italy and Austria. An arrowhead was found lodged in his left shoulder, having caused fatal bleeding when he was attacked in mountainous terrain. But, in some sense, Ötzi still lives, as new research shows.
Colombia's soccer jersey isn't just about sports. It's become a symbol of political division
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s national soccer jersey — a symbol of unity and pride as the team heads to the 2026 FIFA World Cup — has become embroiled in the country’s bitterly disputed presidential election, sparking debate over whether the yellow shirt should be used at political rallies.
Trump Endorses Colombian Presidential Candidate Abelardo de la Espriella
Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, responded on social media Tuesday night, criticizing Trump’s public support for de la Espriella.
Barriers to Inclusive Sexual and Reproductive Health Care for LGBTQ+ Populations: A Narrative Review With Emphasis on Midwifery and Obstetric Services in Greece
Despite recent legal and policy advancements, LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and additional identities) populations continue to face significant barriers to equi...
NJBIA: Samsung’s Exit Underscores NJ’s Challenging Business Climate
Samsung’s decision to relocate its U.S. corporate headquarters in Englewood Cliffs to Texas by the end of the year underscores New Jersey’s difficult tax
How Science Works
The 2nd Weather and Climate Livestream is now underway. It is organized by a group of early-career researchers concerned about declining funding for the field and eager to demonstrate how weather and climate research makes a difference in our lives. Last year’s event was a great success, drawing terrific press coverage including a piece in the NY Times. This year features a strong lineup of talks aimed at a general audience — I highly recommend tuning in. Share I gave a talk yesterday about How Science Works in Three Steps. You can see the short presentation here (I’ve appended a transcript below): And please tune into the livestream here. It runs through tomorrow at 6 pm ET. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Cleaned up transcript: Thank you, and thanks to everyone tuning in. I want to talk about something I think a lot of people don’t really understand: how science actually works. Arguments over any scientific topic — climate change, vaccines, you name it — revolve around competing claims. For climate change, the claims are: Is the Earth warming? Are humans to blame? What will the impacts be? Over the last 150 years, the scientific community has developed a remarkably robust method for sorting out which claims are true and which aren’t. That method is what I want to walk through. So how does science generate knowledge? If you ask a high schooler, they’ll give you the version they learned in ninth grade: an individual scientist forms a hypothesis, runs an experiment, and draws a conclusion. That’s more or less what happens at the individual level, though in practice it’s more iterative — you design, test, and refine all at once, landing on a slightly different idea each time until you reach a conclusion about whatever hypothesis you’ve ended up with. But this isn’t science. It’s only step one. Any individual scientist can make mistakes — scientists are human. Maybe there’s a bug in the code, maybe there’s an error in the experiment. Just because someone ran an experiment and reached a conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right, and scientists don’t treat a single result as settled truth. Step two is peer review, the first layer of quality control. The scientist writes up what they did and submits it to a journal, which sends the paper to other experts in the field. Those experts judge whether the methods are sound, whether it properly references prior work, and whether the conclusions actually follow from the data. Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you peer review is miserable — the comments come back brutal, often harsh, and you have to revise and resubmit, sometimes multiple times, before an editor finally accepts the paper. Peer review catches an immense amount of bad science, but it can’t catch all of it. Reviewers get sloppy or overworked, they miss obvious mistakes, and they can’t catch hidden errors — a bug in the code, a misread instrument. So a peer-reviewed paper making it into a journal doesn’t mean the paper is right. Nobody treats a single paper as the final word. That’s where step three comes in: the crucible of science. Important results get retested by the broader community. If you publish something interesting, it gets dissected. Sometimes people try to reproduce your work directly but more often they test its implications. If someone claims X is true, and that implies that Y is also true, then scientists will go check Y. If a claim survives this gauntlet long enough, it becomes accepted. That’s how we generate knowledge. Let me give an example: the ozone hole. In 1985 — and I doubt many people watching were around then, but I remember it well — Joe Farman and his colleagues published observations from Antarctica showing that a huge chunk of ozone was disappearing every year. This was shocking because most atmospheric chemists had expected ozone loss to occur at mid-latitudes and high altitudes, not over the South Pole. When scientists see something they don’t understand, they rush to explain it, and several competing hypotheses quickly appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One pointed to chlorine chemistry from chlorofluorocarbons. A second blamed nitrogen chemistry, possibly driven by solar proton events — meaning the sun was responsible. A third argued it wasn’t chemistry at all but dynamics: winds were carrying naturally low-ozone air from the lower atmosphere up into the stratosphere. Then the community went to work testing which theory could survive the crucible. Aircraft flew into the ozone hole and found no nitrogen, ruling out the nitrogen theory. Measurements showed the air in the polar vortex was descending, not rising — which would bring high-ozone air down, eliminating the dynamics theory. Meanwhile, those same flights measured enormous amounts of chlorine, strongly correlated with exactly the regions where ozone was being destroyed. That became known as the “smoking gun” paper, and it established that chlorine chemistry was the cause. Through this process, a consensus emerged. And it’s worth being clear that this consensus is organic. There’s no vote, no poll, no meeting where it gets decided. Scientists go to conferences, talk to one another, and independently arrived at the same answer. It’s the ultimate free market of ideas. After the consensus was established, the peer-reviewed literature doesn’t even mention the rival theories — it simply takes chlorine chemistry as given. That’s what a consensus looks like. It doesn’t mean every single scientist agrees, but it does mean there’s no longer any legitimate debate. So where can you see what scientists actually think? It’s all in the peer-reviewed literature, which contains the entire historical record of the argument: the discovery, the competing theories, the debate, the testing, and finally the community coalescing around one answer. But there’s a lot of room for misrepresentation. You can dig up an old paper claiming the ozone hole was caused by dynamics and wave it around as if there still was a debate about the cause of the ozone hole — without mentioning that the idea was disproven long ago and that even its own authors no longer believe it. There’s a bigger problem, though: the peer-reviewed literature is written in a language I call “nerd.” It’s extremely hard to read — honestly, some of it is hard for me to follow. It takes graduate students years to work through the literature in a single field, so we can’t expect policymakers or ordinary people to do it. This is where scientific assessments come in. The most famous is the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The job of an assessment is to read and summarize the peer-reviewed literature, synthesizing what’s settled, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely debated. To ensure the assessments accurately summarize the peer-reviewed literature, assessments are written by large teams, which are far less prone to bias than individuals and which dilute the influence of any one scientist with an axe to grind. The teams are deliberately assembled to avoid stacking the deck, and the reports themselves go through multiple rounds of peer review. That rigorous process is exactly why you can trust them and why people consider the IPCC to be the gold standard of what we know about the climate system. An assessment produced through a different process may well not be credible. You can even watch the consensus evolve across assessments. Take the attribution of warming. The 1990 IPCC report said the observed warming was broadly consistent with model predictions but also comparable to natural variability — in other words, we don’t know whether humans are responsible. By 1995, it concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence — a sentence only a committee could write, and one that barely commits to anything. By 2001, most of the warming over the previous 50 years was judged “likely” due to greenhouse gases; by 2007, “very likely”; by 2013, “extremely likely.” The 2023 report says essentially the same as 2013 — there’s not much stronger language available. So, to wrap up: science is our ultimate tool for deciphering the universe — the most successful method we’ve ever developed for determining what’s true and what isn’t. Our understanding is written into the peer-reviewed literature, so if you want to know what scientists think, that’s where to look. And for those of us who don’t speak nerd, scientific assessments are the Rosetta Stone — they translate nerd into English. Let me open the floor to questions. Thank you.
NJBIA Statement on Samsung Leaving NJ, State's Business Climate
NJBIA President and CEO Michele Siekerka released the following statement regarding today’s announcement of Samsung moving its U.S. headquarters from New
Bias, stigma can impact LGBTQ+ mental health, counselor says
What might negatively impact LGBTQ+ mental health?
The Downtown Santa Barbara Improvement Association’s “New Business Openings” Update
Santa Barbara, CA – The Downtown Santa Barbara Improvement Association (DSBIA) is pleased to announce that a total of 19 new businesses have opened or are
Inside the fight against ‘zombie deer disease,’ scientists confront changing politics
A lab in Louisiana is a hub for chronic wasting disease research and detection. Outside, scientists face skepticism.
Wide receiver Beckham Jr returns to New York Giants
Wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr rejoins the New York Giants after signing with the NFL team where he first made his name 12 years ago.
Herbal Dispatch Reports First Quarter 2026 Results and Provides Business Update
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 1, 2026) - Herbal Dispatch Inc. (CSE: HERB) (OTCQB: LUFFF) (FSE: HA9) ("Herbal Dispatch" or the "Company"), a cannabis e-commerce and distribution platform, today reported its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2026 and provided an update on the Company's strategic initiatives and operational progress.Strategic Transition UnderwayDuring the first quarter of 2026, Herbal Dispatch continued positioning its business toward...
Researchers successfully freeze and revive Anopheles gambiae mosquito larvae
Vitrification enables simpler, more resilient storage of key mosquito strains used in malarial vector control.
Right-Wing Firebrand Surges Into Colombia Runoff, Shaking Political Establishment
Abelardo de la Espriella, a rich lawyer who promises an iron-fisted crackdown on drug thugs, finishes ahead of ruling movement’s leftist hopeful.
Pro-Trump candidate to face Petro ally in Colombia presidential runoff election after surprising performance
In a surprisingly strong performance, right-wing outsider candidate Abelardo de la Espriella will face leftist candidate senator Iván Cepeda in a runoff to decide Colombia’s presidency, setting the stage for a battle over Colombia’s political future and the direction of its relationships with key international partners, including the United States.
Sky exits UAE news venture after genocide denial accusations
Sky News Arabia to retain its name in brand licensing deal after criticism of its coverage of the war in Sudan
How 5 minutes of movement can change your life
Scientists say that sitting is the new smoking. The average American adult now sits for 9-10 hours per day. What’s the least amount of movement someone can do to offset the harms of our modern sedentary lifestyle? Manoush Zomorodi, host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour podcast, has spent the last several years trying to answer that question. After collaborating with Columbia University Medical Center on a major study, she brings Ayesha the answer.
Zoo Mom Science Is Back At Minneola City Hall With More Cool Critters. Crikey!
Submitted by Josie Dix, Minneola Library Leaping lizards! This summer let our insects, arachnids, reptiles, and amphibians teach and entertain you on Friday, June 5 at 11 am at the Minneola City Hall Gym at 800 US-Hwy 27. Zoo Mom Science is a true Florida family business with a passion for animals. Laura Roberts is […]
From Wittgenstein to water capture: Meet the valedictorians and salutatorians of CC and SEAS
For the four graduating seniors awarded with the highest academic distinctions in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science—the valedictorians and salutatorians—the recognition came as a surprise.
‘Don’t be yourself’ in the workplace, actually, Columbia professor says. Here’s why authenticity is ‘overrated’
In the ongoing debate around balancing one’s personal and professional lives, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic says “being yourself” isn’t a good enough leadership strategy.
From cryptids to new businesses, what keeps people in Columbia after 300 years
Antique clocks. Turkey Hill ice cream. The red brick and arched trusses of the Market House. Raptors flying over an expanse of river, nesting on a bridge that replaced the
Behavioural science has a practical lesson for us to fight back against transphobia
The behavioural science concept of ‘extinction bursts’ might be useful for the Trans+ community
Catch the Columbia Fireflies this weekend on Palmetto Sports & Entertainment
The Columbia Fireflies are back on the airwaves this weekend on Palmetto Sports & Entertainment.
Catch the Columbia Fireflies this weekend on Palmetto Sports & Entertainment
The Columbia Fireflies are back on the airwaves this weekend on Palmetto Sports & Entertainment.
DrPH graduate focuses on digital innovation for diabetes prevention | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Qais Dirar, DrPH '26, plans to return home to Saudi Arabia to help lead the regional expansion of a digital health company.
Team develops open-source framework to accelerate health AI research
A research team led by Columbia University has developed an open-source framework designed to streamline and accelerate artificial intelligence research using health data, addressing longstanding challenges ...
Colombia’s ‘Total Peace’ plan: A failure or unfinished business for Petro?
As Colombia prepares to elect a new president, candidates are debating the legacy of Gustavo Petro's signature policy.
Inside 'The End of Oak Street': How Anne Hathaway ended up fighting dinosaurs in suburbia
'The End of Oak Street' combines prehistoric spectacle and grounded family drama, says director David Robert Mitchell, who called upon his childhood love of dinosaurs to craft the original sci-fi adventure.
LLMs believe false statements even after explicit warnings that they're false
Fine-tuning tests show "bias ... toward confidently representing the claims as true."
Learning to Love Again
A year ago, I was writing prodigiously about the upcoming 2025 Penn State football season. Repeatedly, I remember noting that this was the most anticipated season in Happy Valley since Sports Illustrated tabbed the Nittany Lions No. 1 back in the preseason of 1999. My excitement for the season was at that proverbial fever pitch, […]
Artists drop out of DC Freedom 250 festival over reported political ties
WBFF Fox45 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Baltimore and nearby towns and communities in Maryland, including Annapolis, Crofton, Glen Burnie, Linthicum, Pasadena, Severn, Cockeysville, Dundalk, Essex, Parkville, Owings Mills, Towson, White Marsh, Woodlawn, Hampstead, Sykesville, Taneytown, Westminster, Elkton, Perryville, Pt. Deposit, Rising Sun, Aberdeen, Abingdon, Bel Air, Edgewood, Fallston, Havre De Grace, Columbia, Elkridge, Ellicott City, Fulton, and Ocean City.
Supreme Court rules for Mississippi death row inmate in jury bias case
By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner
Black Women Political Candidates Are Expected to Be 'Likable,' Qualified and Tireless. Men Aren’t.
What I had experienced during that run wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to me. The year before, in 2013, I had run for president of the Young Democrats of America (YDA), a national political party office role, against a popular opponent. The opponent was a Black man, so race wasn’t a factor in the election; however, gender was. Before my campaign, I was vice president of YDA and had heard only good things about my service: my fundraising efforts, the partnerships I had engineered with progressive organizations, and programming coordination for the membership. However, when I decided to run for president, I instantly became ‘difficult to work with’ and ‘mean.’ Research on women candidates confirms that voters are less likely to vote for a woman if they don’t like her; by comparison, voters don’t need to like men to elect them. But when I was running as the Black woman candidate in a seven-candidate primary for public office, with two other women in the race, I noticed almost nothing about my being ‘difficult’ and more about my ability and work ethic. My experience running for public office reflected the systemic bias and double standards not just for women candidates, but Black women candidates who dare to aspire to any sort of political leadership—and that needed to change. We need more progressive Black women in public office for a myriad reasons, but we also specifically need the younger generation of Instigators in office, candidates who understand the times in which we live currently. Electing more Black women will take real investment in changing the biases and attitudes (conscious and unconscious) of mostly white donors, media, campaign staff, consultants and institutional leaders to help shift the culture and systems. But this support needs to be substantively increased so that we can rebuild an inclusive, multiracial democracy with the leaders we want and need. (Excerpted from The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy by Atima Omara.)
Alabama asks Supreme Court to allow use of congressional map helping GOP, despite racial bias ruling
The state's Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal with the justices a day after a three-judge court refused to let the state use a map it adopted three years ago that has a majority Black population in just one of its seven congressional districts.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World announced for Nintendo Switch 2, Switch
Square Enix is making Dragon Quest Monsters The Withered World for Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch, the company just announced. The title is “coming soon”. We actually don’t have any details on this one. Square Enix only showed a teaser during today’s 40th anniversary broadcast for the series, and didn’t go into specifics. That said, based on the logo, Bianca...
Center For Family Health HS Sports Scoreboard
Airdate: May 26th, 2026 Girls Soccer D3 Districts Columbia Central vs Michigan Center, 5-26-26 | Photo GalleryMay 27, 2026Selby Track & Field Classic at Jackson High, 5-26-26 | Photo GalleryMay 27, 2026Center For Family Health HS Sports Scoreboard – May 26th, 2026May 26, 2026Baseball D2 Districts Northwest vs Western, 5-26-26 | Photo GalleryMay 26, 2026Softball…
Incipient Monopolization in Digital Streaming: Judicial Oversight of Contemporary Entertainment Consolidation — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review
On February 27, 2026, Paramount Global confirmed a $110 billion all-cash offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, creating one of the largest media mergers in U.S. history. The offer followed a bidding war with Netflix; however, Warner Bros. ultimately signed the initial offer from Paramount. Netfli
The future of the American healthcare workforce
The U-S is facing a steep healthcare worker shortage. A 2025 federal analysis projected that by 2038, 30 out of 35 physician specialties will be hurting for practitioners, with over 140,000 roles left unfilled. And for nurses, that shortage is projected to be over 108,000. And last week, 24 states plus the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education over new federal student loan limits on graduate degrees. Those caps apply to programs that could graduate workers into these threatened health care fields. But Education Secretary Linda McMahon say these worries are overblown and that these new rules aim to force colleges to lower tuition rates. So, what do these changes really mean for the future of our healthcare workforce in the U.S.?
South Carolina sees record-breaking turnout by lunchtime on first day of early voting
South Carolina voters headed to the polls in record-breaking numbers on the first day of early voting, as state lawmakers in Columbia debated reshaping the districts they're voting in.
Contract details for Patriots draft pick Namdi Obiazor
The Patriots selected the linebacker in the sixth round of this year’s NFL Draft.