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The Diplomat
21-07-2025
- Politics
- The Diplomat
Princeton University Press Stumbles Into a Xinjiang Tour Debacle
The Soviet-style 'Potemkin tour' is alive and well in today's China – as PUP found out when several of its staff took a controversial trip to Xinjiang. There is a long record of Western intellectuals joining 'Potemkin tours' of authoritarian states during the 20th century. Not all of them were illiberal ideologues. In fact, from the point of view of authoritarian hosts, there were useful legitimacy dividends to be had from cultivating liberal foreign intellectuals, whose idealism could be manipulated through lavish hospitality and curated displays of social progress. During the 1920s and '30s the Soviet Union actively wooed them, just as it was courting Western expertise and investment for its industrialization. One such intellectual, the American philosopher John Dewey, was invited on a tour of Russia with a delegation of educators and college presidents in 1928. Afterwards he praised the new reforming zeal in Russian social and educational life: 'Russia is a revolution, involving a release of human powers…of incalculable significance' for both Russia and the world, he mused. Josef Stalin's homicidal purges later disabused Dewey of his hopes. The Potemkin tour is by no means a thing of the past, but the geopolitical conditions in which such tours take place are rather different from those of the 1930s. As Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis wrote in their new book 'Dictating the Agenda,' authoritarian states like China have now gone beyond defensively 'parrying threatening ideas' from liberal democracies, and are actively working both to shape opinion and undermine opposition abroad. The 2001 accession of China to the World Trade Organization, the liberalization of its economy, and the expansion of global internet connectivity once led foreign liberal intellectuals to believe that reforming forces would soon consign Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule to history – a fate that Dewey had believed Bolshevism faced in Russia in 1928. Like Dewey, they set their hopes on the removal of barriers 'that prevent intercourse, knowledge, and understanding.' Things are not turning out as they hoped. Liberal democracy's global standing is now weakened by the re-election of an illiberal populist presidency in the United States. The CCP has meanwhile leveraged China's increasing prosperity, and its own command of sophisticated surveillance, censorship, and propaganda technologies, to reconsolidate its power and suppress dissent at a fraction of the death tolls exacted by Stalin and Mao. Meanwhile Cooley and Dukalkis also observed that states like China have 'sought to reclaim transnational networks of influence to advance their own political ideas, to dictate the agenda' in other countries, exploiting economic interdependencies and the openness of liberal societies to transmit illiberal influence. Wealthy internationalized universities and academic publishers are heavily involved, and financially invested in those networks. Thus, the hybrid social and market liberal imperatives driving today's transnational faith within Western higher education – harmonizing free cultural and intellectual exchange with expanding market access – are ripe for manipulation. A recent Potemkin tour in Xinjiang involving Christie Henry, director of Princeton University Press (PUP), presents a vivid illustration of such manipulation, and opportunities to consider how that manipulation can be resisted. According to a June article in China's Peoples Daily, the official mouthpiece of the CCP, 'China in the Eyes of Sinologists: A Cultural Tour in Xinjiang' was held in late June to promote cultural exchange and encourage deeper global understanding of Xinjiang, using the perspectives of invited foreign scholars and educators 'working in publishing and translation.' Many tour participants, including Henry, were previous winners of the Special Book Prize of China award. Its 2025 award ceremony had been held in mid-June, just prior to the Beijing International Book Fair, which Henry and two of her staff had also attended. In a press release published on June 28, PUP, a nonprofit organization that is institutionally independent from Princeton University, explained why Christie and her staff joined the tour: 'Our goal with PUP's China initiative is to ensure greater scholarly exchange, and to bring to English-language readers more knowledge and analyses' of China. By accepting the tour invitation, PUP hoped to 'support that exchange by meeting with scholars, sinologists and translators, and visiting regions our U.S.-based staff had not yet been to.' The tour itinerary explained in the June People's Daily article seemed to accommodate that intention. It stated that in addition to cultural excursions in Ürümqi and Kashgar cities, tour participants joined multiple 'in-depth exchange(s) over translated works by Xinjiang authors.' They also met a few Uyghur authors, as well as translators and representatives of local publishing presses. The tour apparently engaged the social and market liberal dimensions to PUP's China initiative. In August 2017, one month before Henry was appointed as its director, PUP became the first American university press to open a Beijing office, recognizing China's 'increasing centrality in the world of ideas and its growing investment in higher education and scholarly research.' PUP aimed to translate and publish 'exemplary Chinese scholarship' to the world. In April 2022, PUP partnered with University of Chicago Press to provide it with 'exclusive sales and marketing representation in China.' In March 2025, it inked an 'exclusive representation partnership' in China with the prestigious American publishing company W.W. Norton. Still, there are some ambiguities in the PUP press release. According to a Twitter thread by sinologist James Millward, Christie Henry and her colleagues were invited on a tour, but were not told until 'quite late' that the destination would be Xinjiang. In an email exchange Henry did not respond to my request for confirmation of this claim. If Millward's account is true, it suggests that there was no planned rationale for the PUP staff to visit Xinjiang specifically. Moreover, the press release mentions only one tour sponsor, the China National Publications Import and Export Group, with which PUP is collaborating on its China Initiative. The June Peoples Daily article mentions another sponsor: the Publicity Department of the Autonomous Region Party Committee, a propaganda organ of CCP regional government in Xinjiang. The tour was clearly an exercise in United Front influence work. While there is a CCP United Front Department deploying multiple influence strategies domestically and abroad to 'make more people support us [the CCP] and fewer oppose us,' Anne-Marie Brady, the leading global expert on United Front work, told me that it is mistaken to assume that this department does all of that work. 'United front work is the task of all CCP members and all State and Party agencies,' Brady said. The PUP press release in June tacitly acknowledged the Potemkin characteristics of the tour. It had been 'curated,' not 'comprehensive,' and tour footage taken by accompanying Chinese journalists had 'regrettably been repurposed and mis-contextualized… undermining PUP's every intention for inclusive cross-cultural interactions.' This footage, published by state media including the Xinjiang news website Tianshannet, sparked a social media backlash against PUP. While People's Daily and Chinese language Tianshannet news coverage focused on the intellectual engagement side of the tour, state media videos captured tour participants' interactions with Disneyfied Uyghur folk culture displays, which are now a mainstay in Xinjiang tourism. One video of Henry in Kashgar particularly infuriated Uyghur diaspora activists, sinologists, human rights journalists, and many others familiar with the Chinese government's repressive policies of mass incarceration, mass sterilization, forced labor, and forced assimilation against Xinjiang's Uyghur people. Against a backdrop of tour participants dancing with Uyghurs in folk costume, Henry was filmed saying: 'So many cultures exist and meet here, and it's a way for the world to see how cultures can peacefully co-exist and exist in harmony.' She added that she hoped to 'tell this story to the rest of the world.' Her social liberalism had been co-opted to promote CCP messaging on ethnic harmony, to 'tell the Xinjiang story to the world.' Two concerns arise over this public relations debacle. First, despite their awareness of 'the region's ongoing human rights atrocities,' PUP staffers were persuaded to join a government-sponsored tour of Xinjiang, and Henry was somehow inveigled into repeating its ethnic harmony propaganda. If they cannot resist such inducements, can they resist government censorial pressure that compromises the independence of their book acquisitions processes? The tour footage thus feeds suspicions that PUP's investment in the Chinese publishing market is weakening its commitment to free cultural and intellectual exchange. In its June press release, PUP referenced its publication of 'China-critical' books such as Sean Roberts' 'The War on the Uyghurs,' as if to exonerate itself of those suspicions. Roberts responded angrily on X, accusing PUP of using his book to 'whitewash' Christie's actions, and suspecting it was likely 'all about $.' The American sinologist Perry Link told me that his co-authored biography of the Nobel prize-winning poet and political prisoner Liu Xiaobo, 'I Have No Enemies,' had originally been contracted to PUP, with a generous advance payment. After initial enthusiasm, PUP contacted the authors in March 2021 to request extensive revisions to the book manuscript. Link and his co-author's subsequent revisions did not satisfy PUP editors, who canceled the contract, while allowing the authors to keep their cash advance. Columbia University Press then quickly accepted the book, requested no major revisions, and in 2023 it was published to acclaim. Link told me he had 'no smoking gun connecting this event to PUP's setting up its office in Beijing.' However, his suspicions of political bias or censorship had been revived by the Xinjiang tour news. When asked for comment, Christie Henry rejected these suspicions, stating that 'we deny any political influence on PUP publishing decisions, including the rights reversion for this manuscript.' The second concern is that PUP's director joined a tour in a region where the Chinese government has been credibly accused of committing crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide. The intellectual engagement side of the tour was compromised by the fact that leading Uyghur scholars whose works are candidates for PUP's translation projects, like Ilham Tohti and Rahile Dawut, are currently serving lengthy prison sentences. Moreover, Henry's statements about ethnic harmony, even if 'mis-contextualized,' invite accusations not only of moral but also of intellectual irresponsibility. She allowed herself, as the head of a prestigious academic press, to become a mouthpiece for disinformation whitewashing grave human rights violations. At this point, I should declare my own interests. I am also a socially liberal academic, still holding out for free scholarly and cultural exchange despite authoritarian headwinds. I have published translated work by Chinese (and Taiwanese) scholars for Anglosphere readers and I hope that my books are reaching readers in China, even if they encroach on taboo topics for censors. My latest edited book was published by Routledge's Beijing office, and I have no complaints about the professionalism of its staff. Nor do I think Christie Henry should be 'cancelled.' However, incidents like PUP's Xinjiang tour demonstrate that international academic presses operating in China must be vigilant against United Front entanglements, to safeguard their reputation and integrity. They must also work out exit strategies with clear red line triggers. At minimum, those red lines should include censorial pressure on their acquisitions processes, demands to join compromising engagements like Potemkin tours in return for market access, and state-directed intimidation, or persecutions, of authors and employees. There is, finally, one message I want to convey to Henry, to the 13 international scholars and translators who also took part in the Xinjiang tour, and to other scholars tempted into joining such Potemkin tours. It comes from the Uyghur historian Tohti Tuniyaz. In 2014, shortly before his death, the Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolis Weekly interviewed him on his new book, 'Medieval Uyghur Society.' There was much that Tuniyaz could not mention, including his 11 years of imprisonment in Xinjiang on false charges of 'stealing state secrets' and 'inciting national disunity,' over authorized archival research he had conducted in Urumqi. But at the interview's conclusion, he did address the following to researchers visiting Xinjiang: 'Regarding scholars…I hope they treat ethnic history and culture with seriousness and integrity.' He then warned against 'tourism dressed up in academic clothing,' and 'so-called researchers [who] insult ethnic communities by writing with a sense of voyeurism, deepening ethnic misunderstandings.'
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TRMK Q1 Deep Dive: Loan Growth, Expense Control, and Cautious Outlook on Tariffs and Rates
Regional banking company Trustmark (NASDAQ:TRMK) beat Wall Street's revenue expectations in Q1 CY2025, with sales up 3.4% year on year to $194.6 million. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.88 per share was 7.8% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy TRMK? Find out in our full research report (it's free). Revenue: $194.6 million vs analyst estimates of $193.6 million (3.4% year-on-year growth, 0.5% beat) Adjusted EPS: $0.88 vs analyst estimates of $0.82 (7.8% beat) Market Capitalization: $2.06 billion Trustmark's first quarter performance was defined by continued loan growth, stable credit quality, and disciplined expense management, as highlighted by CEO Duane Dewey. Management pointed to diversified loan increases across commercial real estate, other commercial segments, and mortgage lending, while also noting a modest decline in non-interest expenses. CFO Tom Owens credited the net interest margin's stability to ongoing repricing of the fixed-rate loan book and securities portfolio, while Chief Credit and Operations Officer Barry Harvey emphasized that net charge-offs and provisions remained in line with expectations, with no major surprises in credit quality during the quarter. Looking ahead, Trustmark reaffirmed its full-year 2025 expectations for low single-digit loan and deposit growth, citing ongoing uncertainty from tariffs and interest rate policies. Dewey acknowledged early signs of cautious client behavior following recent tariff developments, noting, 'We could see some slowdown in some of that new origination volume that we were anticipating.' Management remains watchful of changing market sentiment, while continuing to prioritize organic loan growth and potential expansion into high-growth markets such as Houston, Birmingham, and the Gulf Coast. The company expects disciplined capital deployment, including opportunistic share repurchases, to remain a focus as the year progresses. Management attributed first quarter results to broad-based loan growth, lower expenses, and ongoing stability in credit quality, while also acknowledging emerging external uncertainties. Diversified loan growth: Loan balances increased across commercial real estate (CRE), commercial, and mortgage segments. Harvey explained that many CRE borrowers are choosing to extend maturing loans due to rate uncertainty, which has deferred expected payoffs and supported loan growth in the quarter. Deposit base stability: CFO Tom Owens noted stable personal and commercial deposit balances, with the cost of total deposits declining 15 basis points. The company continues to optimize deposit pricing without relying on promotional rates, which Owens indicated gives 'good flexibility' for supporting future loan growth. Expense management focus: Non-interest expenses declined slightly, driven by lower salaries, benefits, and commissions. Dewey credited slower hiring and production in areas like mortgage banking as key drivers, and highlighted ongoing efforts to control expenses despite some planned increases later in the year, including a core system conversion. Credit quality maintained: Net charge-offs and provisions remained near historical norms, with Harvey noting a modest provision increase driven by loan growth and updated risk ratings. The allowance for credit losses was adjusted upward, but management described overall credit trends as stable. Strategic capital deployment: The company repurchased $15 million of stock during the quarter and has $85 million of remaining authorization. Dewey indicated that capital deployment decisions—including buybacks and potential M&A—will depend on market conditions and ongoing loan growth, with organic expansion in select high-growth markets as a priority. Trustmark's guidance for the year is shaped by external economic uncertainty, evolving customer behavior, and a focus on expense discipline and market expansion. Tariffs and policy impacts: Management is closely monitoring the effects of recently announced tariffs and administrative policies, acknowledging that clients are beginning to show caution in new borrowing decisions. Dewey noted that while loan origination pipelines remain solid, 'we could see some slowdown' if uncertainty persists. Interest rate sensitivity: The company's net interest margin outlook depends on the future path of Federal Reserve rate cuts. Owens explained that, assuming two cuts this year, the margin is expected to improve slightly through ongoing repricing of loans and securities. However, a faster-than-expected decline in rates could limit margin expansion. Expense growth and investment: Planned expenses later in the year, including merit increases and technology investments like a core system conversion, are expected to drive mid-single-digit expense growth. Management aims to offset these increases through continued expense discipline, with Chambers noting that merit increases are now timed for the third quarter, impacting the expense trajectory. Moving forward, the StockStory team will be watching (1) signs of changing client demand and loan origination volumes in response to tariffs and rate uncertainty, (2) the pace and impact of planned investments such as the core system conversion on expense growth, and (3) the company's ability to maintain stable credit quality as competitive pressures increase and economic conditions evolve. Progress in market expansion initiatives and capital deployment strategies will also be important to monitor. Trustmark currently trades at $34.66, down from $35.82 just before the earnings. Is there an opportunity in the stock?See for yourself in our full research report (it's free). Market indices reached historic highs following Donald Trump's presidential victory in November 2024, but the outlook for 2025 is clouded by new trade policies that could impact business confidence and growth. While this has caused many investors to adopt a "fearful" wait-and-see approach, we're leaning into our best ideas that can grow regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate. Take advantage of Mr. Market by checking out our Top 5 Strong Momentum Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025). Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Kadant (+351% five-year return). 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San Francisco Chronicle
14-06-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco is full of surprises, some good, some bad
I was thinking of a June day in the mountains and a long pull through some rough country. We'd stopped at a small creek, tired, out of breath. We could see the way ahead in the distance, a high pass miles away. Very discouraging. 'Relax,' my hiking companion said, 'We're halfway there.' That's where we all are just now. It's mid-June and the summer solstice comes on Friday. It's the longest day of the year, a time the ancients celebrated the turn of the season. You can mark it yourself — 7:42 p.m., not long before sunset. Halfway there. It's been an interesting year, history swirling like storm clouds. Presidents, protests, flags, riots. Sometimes, though, you have to turn off the television news, put down the newspaper and just go for a walk. Live your life. See how things are halfway there. We had mild expectations for 2025 when the year began, a new administration in City Hall and hope for San Francisco's recovery from the doldrums of the last couple of years. So I looked around town a bit and I was surprised; things are looking up. But still a ways to go at the halfway point. The biggest surprise was a weekend visit downtown for a Sunday errand. I headed for Union Square on a slow Muni ride. Typical long wait for the weekend streetcar and then lots of stops and starts. Downtown seemed a bit empty, but everyone expects that. We've all heard the sad stories about vacant stores, seen the homeless in the shadows, heard the rumors. But I was surprised to discover Union Square full of life — full of children on a Sunday afternoon. The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and a business group had set up a kids' playground in the heart of the city. There was a kids' reading room with an assortment of books, a 'recess stand' offering crayons and paper to draw pictures, and kid-size tables and chairs. There were hula hoops and pingpong sets. It was a bit of a shock to a seasoned San Franciscan. Union Square had always been a bit solemn, a formal kind of place, important. That was the ideal, but in recent years Union Square had slipped, had developed an air of vague unease, the kind of urban space one walked through quickly. There were always people hanging out, watching. You know the kind. Don't make eye contact. But it had changed this spring. It was different, better. I went back a few days after my Sunday visit. It was midweek and people were sitting at small tables with blue and yellow umbrellas taking the sun. A small café on the Powell Street side, offering coffee and light snacks. Not many kids around but adults playing pingpong and other games next to the Dewey monument. It was a mix: tourists and locals on their lunch break. The park was clean, too. In a way, Union Square is classic San Francisco in the heart of the city: cable cars, shops, the grand old St. Francis Hotel. And now it has a European flavor that wasn't there before. The real life in the city is not downtown, of course. It's in the neighborhoods, up and down the hills, out in the Sunset, in Chinatown and all the way out on Third Street, where the downtown towers are off in the distance, like a separate city. No matter how well you think you know it, San Francisco is full of surprises. An afternoon walk took me up the local hill. There was a surprise there, too: Neighbors had seeded the hillside in early spring, and now the hill was alive with flowers. There was a knot of people at the top of a set of stairs watching something. That can't be good, I thought. What is it? I asked. 'Owls,' a woman said. 'Great horned owls, four of them. They've made a home in these trees.' The woman had binoculars and there they were, big birds, sitting on a broken branch, as solemn as judges. I've seen seals in the bay, raccoons in the backyard, coyotes down the street, but never before urban owls. Halfway there. I felt good about the city; good vibes and good omens. But after my visit to Union Square I rode a taxi up Market Street. We stopped for traffic halfway up Market, almost to the Castro, and out the window I saw a man writhing on the ground, on a Wednesday afternoon in broad daylight. An overdose, maybe. A woman with a dog walked by. A man walking by himself glanced at the man rolling on the street and walked by. Nobody did anything. We may be halfway toward building a better city, but there is a long way to go.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How would ordinary voters resolve Pennsylvania's big election policy debates?
America in One Room, a collaboration between Stanford University's Deliberative Democracy Lab and Helena, a nonprofit, hosted a deliberative poll in Philadelphia in June 2025 focusing on immigration, healthcare, voting, and other issues. Voters from around Pennsylvania gathered to discuss these issues and try to reach consensus on policy proposals. (Carter Walker / Votebeat) This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access. After years of fruitless debate in Pennsylvania's legislature about whether and how to update the commonwealth's election laws, a civics project is trying to see whether ordinary voters have better luck reaching a consensus on issues such as early voting and voter ID. Nearly 200 Pennsylvanians gave it a shot last weekend in an effort organized by Stanford University's Deliberative Democracy Lab and Helena, a nonprofit that describes itself as a 'global problem solving organization.' The discussions among the participants, gathered in small groups at a Sheraton Hotel in Philadelphia, spotlighted the way ordinary voters process the issues that fuel political rhetoric, legislative debates, and court battles. In one exchange, William Sontag, a participant from Chester County, said he was 'baffled' about what the argument against new voter ID requirements might be. Sarah Dewey, from Bucks County, told him about a friend who had been homeless for a time, with no identification. Dewey said she wasn't necessarily against voter ID, but worried that the cost of obtaining it could be prohibitive. After about 15 minutes of discussion, the group coalesced around the idea that requiring an ID to vote would be acceptable, so long as there were no barriers to getting one. They also decided to ask an expert panel later that day whether the cost of getting an ID could be considered a poll tax. Sontag, Dewey, and the rest of the participants got involved in the project after the organizers randomly selected them from across Pennsylvania, using a method meant to proportionally represent the state's geographic regions, as well as demographic and political characteristics, such as age, race, education, and political leaning. Participants were paid for their time. Focusing on a single state's policies was a novel approach for the American in One Room project, a collaborative effort between the Deliberative Democracy Lab and Helena which have organized four similar nationally focused events since 2019. This type of event is called a 'deliberative poll.' Participants are provided with relevant information on the issues and access to policy experts. They also take a survey meant to gauge their opinions both before and after the event, to see how the deliberation affected their policy preferences. A control group of residents who aren't participating in the deliberations also take the poll as a basis for comparison. The idea is to 'get a better assessment of the will of the people,' said James Fishkin, a communications and political science professor at Stanford and director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab. Besides elections, participants in the Pennsylvania event talked about healthcare, immigration, and housing, among other topics. Many of the election topics mirrored proposals currently being debated in Harrisburg as part of an omnibus voting reform package sponsored by state House Speaker Joanna McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat, who answered participants' questions on election issues on the third day. Fishkin said deliberative polling can prompt policy changes, as it did during consideration of constitutional changes in Mongolia in 2019 — a process that Stanford was also involved with. Deliberative polling also played a role in energy policy debates in Texas, after the Legislature there ordered it as part of its planning process. A Helena representative said McClinton will use the results of its Pennsylvania poll to inform her priorities in ongoing negotiations with the state Senate over sweeping election legislation that passed the state House last month. Participants wrestled with a list of thorny election policy questions, including whether to install video cameras to monitor ballot drop boxes; audit a random sample of ballots to check the accuracy of election results; implement in-person early voting; allow counties to begin processing mail ballots ahead of Election Day; create criminal penalties for misleading, deceiving, or intimidating voters; preregister voters at age 16; and require photo identification to vote. Many of those policies are part of McClinton's election bill, which organizers said they used to select the topics for discussion. In the group discussion observed by Votebeat and Spotlight PA, participants reached agreement on many of the questions posed to them, but it's hard to know if they had all the information. For instance, participants were assigned to consider whether Pennsylvania should allow 11 days of early voting, as McClinton's bill proposes. The briefing document listed increased accessibility as an argument for the proposal, and increased cost as an argument against, among other pros and cons. One factor they didn't consider: that the state's current version of quasi-early voting — in which voters can apply for, complete, and return a mail ballot in person at an elections office — has prompted long lines and confusion. Pennsylvania election officials said they expect that to be an issue for them and for voters in the 2026 and 2028 federal elections. Instead, the participants in that group looked at early voting only from a redundancy standpoint. 'If mail-in ballots remain, then I don't see a need for this,' Dewey, from Bucks County, said. Others in the room agreed with her. Roy Bell, a poll worker from Delaware County, cited the cost of adding personnel for early voting, and election officials' difficulties in enough poll workers. In addition, the briefing materials provided to participants were not entirely accurate. For example, the section on pre-canvassing mail ballots said Pennsylvania 'currently permits election officials to begin processing mail-in and absentee ballots ahead of time but restricts how early this can start.' Pennsylvania's election code does not allow any pre-canvassing — the technical term for this process — of mail ballots before Election Day. It also said that an argument against allowing pre-canvassing is that it 'could increase wait times before results.' It's actually the opposite: Election officials say allowing pre-canvassing would speed up results. Other portions of the briefing were accurate but incomplete, such as a section on post-election audits that did not mention that Pennsylvania already requires two such audits. Some of the citations in the report also included broken links. Votebeat and Spotlight PA used GPTzero, a tool that detects whether text is generated using artificial intelligence, to see whether any of the election portions of the briefing had been written by AI. The tool found that for many of the sections on election issues between 80% and 100% of the text was AI-generated. WITF, an NPR affiliate in Harrisburg, also found errors in other areas of the document. A spokesperson for the Deliberative Democracy Lab said the briefing materials were developed by research assistants and incorporated materials from previous events. An advisory committee — only one member of which was from Pennsylvania — reviewed the materials, and AI was used to help address recommendations and simplify the language to 'an 8th-grade reading level, reflecting the average level of a US adult,' the spokesperson said in an email response to questions. Some information, including the currently required audits, was excluded so as not to overwhelm the participants, the spokesperson said. Organizers said they were confident in the integrity of the deliberations, and would note any errors in their final results. Due to the error in the pre-canvassing pros and cons list flagged by Votebeat and Spotlight PA, the Deliberative Democracy Lab said data from that proposal would be excluded. 'These errors appear to have been introduced during an editing and review process of human-created material in which some AI tools were used to assist,' Fishkin said. 'We apologize for these errors and are reviewing our processes to ensure that such issues do not occur in the future,' Fishkin said. 'We are, however, confident that in totality, the materials provided to participants were reliable and allowed for a fact-based civil dialogue, which is at the heart of the Deliberative Polling process.' Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@ Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
Geek Tyrant
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Bryan Cranston Explains Why His Youngest MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE Co-Star Decided Not to Return for the Revival — GeekTyrant
The Malcom in the Middle revival has wrapped production, and fans are ready for the new episodes to head our way. The story sounds like it will be fun, and it will be cool to see the cast reunite onscreen. All but one returned, Erik Per Sullivan, who played Dewey in the show's original run. Sullivan has not appeared in any of the show's reunions, and he turned down the offer to return to the role in the Disney+ revival project. Fans didn't know what to make of the recasting, with some wondering if there was bad blood between Sullivan and his cast mates, but Malcolm in the Middle dad Bryan Cranston has cleared the air. In a recent interview on the Fly on the Wall podcast, Cranston talked about returning to the series with his TV kids all grown up, stating, "It's amazing how these boys who were my boys on that show are now around the same age I was when we first started, and they've got children of their own." When host David Spade asked about Erik Per Sullivan, who played youngest son Dewey on Malcolm , Cranston lamented that he was "the only one who didn't come back to act in the show." He added, "I talked to Erik and I said, 'Hey, we got the show! It's going to come back.' He goes, 'Oh, that's fantastic!' And I go, 'Yeah, so we're looking forward to having you back.' He goes, 'Oh, no, no, I don't want to do it. But it's fantastic.'" Cranston then confirmed that Sullivan gave up acting after the run of the show, and gave an update on the impressive path Sullivan chose, saying, "He's actually going to Harvard. He's really, really smart, and he's getting his master's at Harvard right now. He said, 'Oh God, no, I haven't acted since I was 9 or something. So I'm not into it.'" Not only is it honorable that a child actor would choose a different career, but it sounds like Sullivan is thriving going the route of education. It's also very cool to hear that he and Cranston are still in touch. They spent many years in each other's lives, and it's awesome that they have been able to keep up a relationship. There is still no released date set for the new episodes of Malcolm in the Middle , but it's rumored to be shooting for a late 2025 release. via: EW
