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Business journalism studies took her to the White House | UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media
The story by UNC Hussman alumni Brennan Doherty ’19 and video by John Roberts ’16 (M.A.) was originally published on unc.edu. This story is part of a four-part series on Carolina alumni working in Washington, D.C. Soon after her 2015 graduation from UNC-Chapel Hill, Megan Cassella was an intern for the Reuters news agency, eagerly awaiting and prepping for a special assignment. “Every now and then they needed an intern to run over to the White House last minute,” Cassella said. “You have to send your information the night before, so I started proactively sending my information to the White House every single night to be able to go the next day if they ever needed an intern.” Since then, she’s made many return trips to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in a career that’s included roles at Reuters, Politico, Barron’s and now CNBC, where she works as an on-air Washington correspondent. A longtime newswriter, Cassella made the move to TV in 2024, appearing on broadcasts multiple times daily to report on the biggest political and business stories. But the keys to doing a good job — knowing how to research, asking insightful questions, building relationships and explaining complex topics to a broad audience — remain the same. Did you know: Outside of the state of North Carolina, the Washington region is home to the largest concentration of Tar Heel alumni in the country. Cassella’s time as a Tar Heel was crucial in sharpening those skills, both in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and through roles at student-run publications like The Daily Tar Heel. She excelled in Carolina’s business journalism program with former professor Chris Roush, which led to an internship at The Charlotte Observer and helped Cassella find her journalistic niche. A data journalism course with Associate Professor Ryan Thornburg taught her how to find stories in numbers, and former professor Paul O’Connor’s reporting class took Cassella to the North Carolina Capitol weekly, where she gained invaluable experience interviewing politicians. “Those hands-on experiences that Carolina gave me really kept my interest and have really benefited me since I’ve been up here in D.C.,” said Cassella. “I have UNC to thank for the fact that I even went into business journalism in the first place.” Megan Cassella ’15 “You’ve got to thrive on adrenaline in this job. You’ve got to do well with last-minute changes, with running by the seat of your pants.” Megan Cassella ’15 ‘There’s nothing else like it’ In recent months, Cassella has reported live from the G7 Summit in Geneva, covered the latest developments in the U.S.-Iran war and followed changes to trade policy, including tariffs. “Anything in this realm that influences Wall Street, I’ll be covering,” Cassella said. Her working hours are long and variable. After waking up, Cassella immediately checks her phone to see what news broke overnight. By 8:15 a.m., she usually learns which newscasts she’ll be on, and then she heads to the newsroom, White House or wherever her assignment is. “We want you in the 9 a.m. show and the 11, and then the 3 o’clock show wants you, too,” Cassella said, referring to a hypothetical day. If Cassella gets an exclusive or major news breaks, she might be told, “We want that on TV right now.” Within five minutes, she’d be expected to get to the camera, figure out what to say and deliver the news to a live audience. “It’s exciting. It’s nerve-wracking,” Cassella said. “But there’s nothing else like it.” A well-rounded education Cassella grew up in Maryland, the youngest of four kids. Her oldest brother, Brian Cassella ’05, attended Carolina, became a photojournalist and recently won a Pulitzer Prize. She remembers visiting campus as a young child and loving it. “I just always wanted to go,” she said, and that desire grew when she, like her brother, gravitated toward journalism. But it wasn’t just the journalism school that drew Cassella to Carolina. “It was also the whole liberal arts curriculum,” she said. “Even though I always wanted to be a journalist, I got to college, and I sort of felt I had to think about other things. I had to explore my options and see if that’s what I really wanted.” Did you know: In April UNC-Chapel Hill opened its Carolina in the Capital office in Washington. She combined her journalism schooling with a global studies major and a history minor. That broad range of academic experiences in Chapel Hill molded her, preparing Cassella for a career that’s taken her to the highest levels of political journalism and inside the Oval Office. “When you sit back and remember you’re actually sitting inside the White House and asking questions of the president, it’s a cool feeling,” Cassella said. “No matter who is in office, no matter what administration or party, it’s a privilege to be there.” Megan Cassella on… Being a Tar Heel in Washington: I run into Tar Heels all the time. My husband’s a Tar Heel. We actually met here in Washington, not at Carolina, even though we were the same class. Probably most of our friends are still Tar Heels. Even up here in D.C., we all get together for games and March Madness. And through work, there’s Tar Heels all over the place. It’s often used as a connection. Favorite Franklin Street spot: When we go back, our first stop is always IP3. That’s more my husband’s doing than mine. In college, I was a huge Spanky’s fan. Felt like it was a classic spot. May it rest in peace. Advice to journalism students: Reps, reps, reps! Nothing beats the experience you’ll gain by simply starting to do the work — asking the questions, reporting and writing the stories, doing the TV hits. When you can, go places in person. Talk to more people than you think you’ll need. Read as much as you can, from different sources and on different topics. If you’re not sure how to start your story, that usually means you need more reporting. When you’re not sure, ask.
Could this Utah suburb become a hub for youth sports? A pitch for a massive indoor athletic complex is on the table.
It can be a struggle for Utah's youth sports teams to find space for practices and games. One suburb is weighing a proposal that could alleviate the crunch.
BRC: Indoor entertainment park leases 29,000 sq. ft., expanding recreation lineup at Plainfield flex property
A new indoor family entertainment destination is coming to Plainfield, where it’s leasing more than 29,000 square feet at a revitalized industrial property.
GBTA Forecasts Business Travel Prices Stay Elevated through 2026
Relief ahead in 2027, as fuel and labor costs are predicted to ease while global demand remains strong
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
Lab-Grown Meat: Separating the Science From the “Yuck”
Is lab-grown meat the sustainable future of food or an unsettling science experiment? Dive into the complex world of cultivated protein as this insightful article explores the “yuck” factor, steep economic hurdles, and structural shifting driving the cutting-edge future of farming.
Will Beyoncé and Lady Gaga Reunite for “Get Me Bodied” Remix?
Beyoncé registered a version of her song "Get Me Bodied" with Lady Gaga.
Southern Maryland Mom Turns Passion Into Business Inspired By Daughter
CALIFORNIA, Md. — By 4 a.m., while most of Southern Maryland is still asleep, Alexis Truby is already balancing the many roles that fill her day. The 26-year-old is a wife, mother of two, full-time government contractor and the owner of The Evelyn Edit & Co., a digital design business inspired by her newborn daughter, […]
Google's New Pixel 'Dynamic' Pricing Sounds A Lot Like 'Surge' Pricing
Google could rethink Pixel 11 pricing as memory costs rise, with a more flexible model that may leave buyers paying more at key moments ahead.
The curious case of Christian Encarnacion-Strand
The Blaze Alexander replacement has given a jolt to the Orioles’ lineup, but can he be a long term piece for Baltimore?
Pitaka’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Flip 8 cases deliver smart features without the bulk
Samsung’s foldables are built to deliver flexibility to its users, but protecting them often means dealing with extra bulk that...
Mercy Health expands maternity care by connecting patients with midwives
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.
Kathleen Madonna-Emmerling and Alex Rose: Allegheny County has a public health crisis. Paid parental leave can change that.
Since the Allegheny County Board of Health first introduced the paid parental leave proposal on May 13, there’s been an outpouring of public engagement on the topic. People from across the county have packed public hearings, sharing some of the most intensely personal stories you could imagine about their experiences
Yankees Birthday of the Day: Alex Rodriguez
No. 13 turns 51 today.
The Electability Myth and How It Became a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Is America "ready" for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Pete Buttigieg to be president? How the electability myth becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity what they really think of each other — and their responses revealed their biggest strengths (and weaknesses)
Each chatbot proved to be as honest as possible
Germany's sick-note crackdown may be treating the symptoms, not the disease
Germany's plans to tighten sick-note rules may be mistaking the symptoms of rising absenteeism for the underlying illness, researchers say, pointing to mental health strains and deteriorating working conditions in sectors such as healthcare and education.
Daniel Cormier: Magomed Ankalaev Next for 205 lbs Title Shot
UFC commentator Daniel Cormier believes that Magomed Ankalaev has done enough to get another title shot at 205 lbs.Ankalaev defeated Bogdan Guskov via fifth-round TKO in the main event of UFC Abu Dhabi to get back into the win column after losing the UFC light heavyweight title in his last fight to Alex Pereira at […] The post Daniel Cormier: Magomed Ankalaev Next for 205 lbs Title Shot appeared first on HEAVY.
Cubs Celebrate Javier Assad's First MLB Save
Javier Assad and the Chicago Cubs are sitting atop the National League Wild Card standings at 59-46. Chicago trails the 65-39 Milwaukee Brewers by 6.5 games for the NL Central pennant and is three games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies for the top Wild Card spot. Assad is a flexible pitcher for Chicago, with the right-hander placed into any situation necessary.
Lions Free Agent Addition Receives Fantasy Sleeper Status
Isaiah Pacheco was a major disappointment for the Kansas City Chiefs last year. However, he is expected to bounce back and have a strong season in 2026 with the Detroit Lions. The loss of David Montgomery should propel Pacheco into flex territory in fantasy football, according to Kristopher Knox of Bleacher Report.“Pacheco will get a […] The post Lions Free Agent Addition Receives Fantasy Sleeper Status appeared first on HEAVY.
Man arrested in connection to tractor theft and business burglary
The Office of the Sheriff for Rockbridge County and Lexington City has arrested a man and anticipates additional charges as the investigation continues.
Shakira Surprises Fans, Brings Out Tyla for "Hips Don't Lie" in Brooklyn
The surprise appearance is a timely one for Tyla, whose new album is out this Friday.
President Trump just implemented new tariffs. How are small businesses coping?
An NPR business correspondent explains how to cover the complex story of how small businesses are coping with tariffs.
Manatee County commissioners weigh $80 million sports complex proposal
Manatee County is considering Project Grace, a $80 million indoor sports complex in Lakewood Ranch with four hockey rinks.
Tech firm Fever produces live shows worldwide, with local consequences
Unwrapping the complex puzzle of Fever, the company behind a nesting doll of live performances in Seattle and around the world.
Founder-Led Growth Is Replacing The Old Business Playbook
Most of the money founders spend on growth adds complexity and never builds trust. Here are the 4 parts of founder-led growth that make people buy before you pitch.
Alexa Is About To Get Smarter
Amazon’s latest Alexa Plus update introduces an AI developer toolkit, MCP support, and smart home automations that understand natural language.
Looking for the ultimate car 'flex'? Buy a sedan with a V12 engine, insiders say
The Mercedes-Maybach S 680 sedan is available in very few markets.
Confusion for residents after Legionella bacteria found in Lower East Side building
Residents are confused about water issues at an apartment Complex in Alphabet City.
Eat Street businesses reflect 6 months after Alex Pretti killing by federal agents
Why two Cleveland-area businesses are betting on racing simulators
Speed Trap Racing and Lorain KartPlex are betting that high-end racing simulators can become motorsports' version of golf simulators.
Stony Brook University Researchers Chosen for Landmark DOE Genesis Mission AI-for-Science Awards
More than $2.4M will support collaborations with Brookhaven National Lab and other institutions to address complex science and technology challenges Researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University) secured five inaugural awards through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, a national AI-for-science initiative designed to accelerate scientific
Vanderbilt Staffing Collaborative expands workforce flexibility across Vanderbilt Health
By providing greater staffing stability, the VSC equips nursing leaders with scheduling alternatives that reduce mandatory overtime and on-call shifts for their teams.
High School Science That Teaches an ID Perspective? Yes, Please!
Kristin Marais and Summer Edwards explain why they’re so passionate about teaching their subject and how the courses are designed with maximum flexibility.
Annual STEM Day offers hands-on science and tech activities for families
Families looking for something fun and educational this weekend can check out the Lexington Children's Museum annual STEM Day on Saturday.
NIH Renews Prestigious Training Grant for NC State Ph.D. Students Preparing to Lead Complex Research Teams
The National Institutes of Health has approved a $2.5 million grant for the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine to continue the work of its Comparative Molecular Medicine Training Program, which awards fellowships to Ph.D. students in NC State University’s Comparative Medicine Institute. Since NIH first funded the program in 2021, more than 20 students…
AOC calls for McConnell to resign if he can't give another update
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told Spectrum News Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., should "absolutely" resign if he can't provide another update
Nestlé to sell half of waters business in $3.4B deal
Peranel, which will house brands such as S.Pellegrino and Source Perrier, will be a fully independent company and have full flexibility to “pursue growth opportunities.”
Requested 2027 Affordable Care Act rate increases average 17.1% in Pennsylvania
Health insurers serving Pennsylvanians with coverage under the Affordable Care Act are proposing to increase premiums by an average of 17.1% for individuals...
Agentic coding goes hands free as OpenAI brings GPT-Live's full duplex voice control to Codex and ChatGPT on the desktop
This architecture creates a pair-programming dynamic where developers talk through problems conversationally while agents execute tasks asynchronously.
Alexa Plus is getting an AI update to handle more complicated instructions
Alexa Plus will soon plug into Canva, Priceline, Lyft, and more.
Wilmington announces business and economic development chief
The city of Wilmington announced on Thursday the hiring of Louis Starks as its new business and economic development manager. According to a news release, the role focuses on strengthening Wilmington's business ecosystem, supporting entrepreneurship and advancing strategic economic growth. "In this role, Starks will collaborate with residents, local businesses, community groups, educational institutions and regional partners to promote investment, workforce development, and innovation for businesses of all sizes," the release stated. "He will also help connect small businesses with City procurement opportunities, cultivate public-private partnerships, and lead initiatives that promote long-term economic vitality." Starks has more than 20 years of experience in economic development, urban planning, housing finance, workforce development and public policy, according to the release. Most recently, he served as manager of business development for Oakland County, Michigan, "where he led teams focused on business retention and expansion and financial services for one of the nation's most economically diverse regions. During his tenure, his teams supported billions of dollars in business investment initiatives while helping create thousands of jobs," the release stated. He holds a law degree and master's degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Iowa, as well as a bachelor's degree from Duke University. He is also a Certified Economic Development Professional. Starks is expected to begin his Wilmington position on July 27. “Louis has built his career around helping individuals, organizations and communities reach their full potential,” stated city manager Becky Hawke in the release. “Whether supporting entrepreneurs, managing complex redevelopment projects, or bringing together public and private partners, he has consistently focused on creating opportunity and delivering results. He understands that a strong economy creates opportunities for everyone. By supporting local businesses and fostering innovation, his work will help ensure the benefits of Wilmington’s growth are felt throughout the community, creating jobs, strengthening neighborhoods, and improving quality of life for residents.”
Arts & Entertainment Agenda, July 25 to 30
‘Living Lines: Contemporary Native Voices,’ exhibition on view Casterline|Goodman Gallery is hosting “Living Lines: Contemporary Native Voices,” which opened July 20 at 611 E. Cooper Ave. It’s a landmark group exhibition featuring works by Cara...
CCTA being used more and more to plan ahead before complex PCI
Interventional cardiologist Yader Sandoval, MD, discusses the growing trend of using CCTA imaging to plan ahead before complex PCI procedures.
UNC turns to LLC model as college sports money game shifts
UNC is creating an LLC to manage key athletics programs, aiming for more flexibility and new revenue in a fast-changing college sports landscape.
Cigna expands chronic care management, projects $200M savings
Cigna Healthcare is broadening its AI-enabled care management programs to reach more customers with emerging, complex and chronic health needs. The expanded approach is expected to support 20% more customers across areas including behavioral health, cancer, heart disease, kidney disease and high-risk pregnancy. The initiative combines predictive analytics with AI-enabled tools to help identify customers […]
Booking.com for Business Offers Business Travel Jet Lag Calculator
Tool aims to minimize syndrome
Harnessing Abundant Electricity From the Sun—and Other CU Boulder Science Tapped for Genesis Mission
Three CU Boulder-led projects and three collaborative projects selected through the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission. Research will advance artificial intelligence for fusion energy, quantum computing, particle physics and water prediction. Awards recognize CU Boulder's leadership in applying AI to some of the nation's most complex scientific challenges.
Inside Amazon's push to lower Alexa AI costs
Internal documents show Amazon worked to lower Alexa+ AI costs by reducing the use of Anthropic models and getting more work from every GPU.
Land use panel hears neighbors' issues on sports complex
The city’s Land Use Commission Wednesday discussed a proposal for a youth sports facility on Green Bay Road, ultimately deciding to shift the item to the
Business owner concerned as road closure remains
“The road closing has caused a lot of confusion about ‘is the street open, is it not open,’” said Magana.
‘Seinfeld’ Star Apologizes For Filming ‘Inappropriate’ Sketch With Minor
Jason Alexander apologized after Stodden wrote on Instagram that her body “became part of an adult joke” during their 2012 skit when she was a minor.
You Can Now Fly Delta Business Class for a Lot Less, but There’s a Catch
Travelers can now book cheaper premium cabin tickets on Delta, but they’ll give up flexibility, lounge access, and other perks depending on the fare.
Simple Steps for Better Brain Health with Dr. Alexander - South Texas Brain & Spine Center
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla reintroduces Health Equity and Accountability Act
Along with other federal Democratic lawmakers, Padilla said the proposal to reduce health disparities has become more urgent after funding cuts
Padilla Leads Tri-Caucus in Introducing Sweeping Health Equity Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), along with Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Representatives Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.-25), Robin Kelly (D-Ill.-02), and Grace Meng (D-N.Y.-06) announced the reintroduction of the Health Equity and Accountability Act (HEAA) of 2026, bicameral legislation that would address health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities as well […]
Pickleball courts open at Los Banos sports complex
A new place to enjoy some fun in the sun is now available in Los Banos. The first city-owned pickleball courts opened on Saturday.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumps to front of NH 2028 Dem primary field
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY,, now leads the 2028 Democratic primary field in New Hampshire, while Marco Rubio closes in on JD Vance.
OU Health performs rare dual pulmonary valve procedure
Physicians at OU Health have successfully performed a rare and technically complex heart procedure that placed two artificial pulmonary valves at the same time.
Stony Brook University Researchers Chosen for Landmark DOE Genesis Mission AI-for-Science Awards
More than $2.4M will support collaborations with Brookhaven National Lab and other institutions to address complex science and technology challenges WASHINGTON, D.C., July 22, 2026 – Researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University) secured five inaugural awards through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, a national AI-for-science
Lilac Hills apartments inspected, no immediate health or safety hazards found
The City of Kalamazoo has completed an inspection of the Lilac Hills apartment complex following complaints from residents about living conditions.
AOC Blames Trump Science Cuts for Rise in “Explosive Diarrhea” Cases
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez linked budget reductions in federal science departments during the presidency of Donald Trump to a sharp growth in the number of Americans suffering from explosive diarrh...
Jen Palmieri Has a New Politics Show
Jennifer Palmieri has also brought on former NOLA mayor Mitch Landrieu and journalist Errin Haines for 'Long Play,' a six-part docuseries about the region’s complexities.
Stanford and SLAC to lead Genesis Mission projects
The U.S. Department of Energy announced the first phase of funding for projects using artificial intelligence to tackle the nation’s most complex science and technology challenges, including six led by Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
ONR Announces New 2026 Science and Technology Strategy for Navy, Marin
ARLINGTON, Va.—The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has released its new Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy, which serves as a roadmap for the future to meet complex challenges facing the
Smart Tips to Maximize Your NASCAR Weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
At New Hampshire Motor Speedway, fans get more than just racing — they get great value. New England's only NASCAR Cup Series weekend features affordable tickets, free parking, flexible camping options and inclusive entertainment like live music and fan experiences.
Deaths of Brainerd middle schoolers prompt calls to address bullying, mental health
Two Forestview Middle School students, 11-year-old Ava Starr and 13-year-old Alexis Thornton, died just three weeks apart. Both families say the girls were bullied by other students.
Big Ank Lost By Accident!
Former UFC Light Heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev still has revenge on his mind. “Big Ank” returns to action this weekend (July 25, 2026) in the main event of UFC Abu Dhabi versus Uzbek knockout artist Bogdan Guskov (not Khalil Rountree Jr.). It’s been about ten months since Ankalaev’s title loss to Alex Pereira, a quick […]
Trump flexes GOP muscle in Arizona primaries as Dems dodge far-left upset
Arizona’s primaries put Trump’s GOP influence on display and set the stage for high-stakes governor and House races in November.
Florida Poly's fledgling athletics program secures use of Auburndale sports facilities
The Phoenix will use the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex, Auburndale Softball Complex and Auburndale Community Center for three years, beginning with the inaugural men's soccer match next month.
$84 million science complex will create 'new front porch' where ISU meets Uptown
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Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
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