Television
How Big Is 'Love Island USA'? More Than 10 Million People Are Already on Its App
"We have more people voting on the app than we do in many political elections taking place across the country," says the show's executive producer. Walls of cameras so millions of Americans can watch your spicy summer flings happen in real time? The app, where levels of viewer engagement are so high that it crashed during the first vote. Fans of the real-time dating show relish controlling the action through their in-app votes, helping decide who couples up and who gets dumped. Fan votes happen around five times during each season.
Policy Optimization Achieves Data-Dependent Regret Bounds in MDPs with Unknown Transitions
Li, Mingyi, Tsuchiya, Taira, Yamanishi, Kenji
We study policy optimization for online episodic tabular Markov decision processes with unknown transition kernels, aiming for best-of-both-worlds guarantees together with data-dependent regret bounds. Recent work (Dann et al., 2023; Li et al., 2026) has shown that policy optimization can adapt to both adversarial and stochastic losses with first-order, second-order, and path-length bounds, but only under known transitions, leaving open whether such data-dependent guarantees are achievable by policy optimization when the transition kernel is unknown. We resolve this by developing a new algorithm based on optimistic follow-the-regularized-leader that attains these guarantees under unknown transitions. The key ingredient is a new design of optimistic $Q$-function estimators together with a data-dependent transition bonus that controls estimator bias through the loss-prediction error. Our analysis further identifies an unavoidable transition-dependent complexity term that captures the intrinsic cost of estimating the transition kernel. As a result, we obtain first-order, second-order, and path-length bounds with the transition-dependent complexity term while simultaneously achieving gap-dependent $\mathrm{polylog}(T)$ regret in the stochastic regime.
Netflix is forcing users to link profiles to separate email addresses
Netflix is implementing a new requirement for users to link separate email addresses to each profile on shared accounts, with no apparent opt-out option available. PCWorld reports that customer support screenshots and Reddit user experiences confirm this policy rollout, though an official announcement is still pending. While Netflix claims this enhances login security and personalization, critics view it as a data collection method that increases company control over users. Since 2023, it's been possible to share your Netflix account with someone who doesn't live in your household. Account sharing relies on separate profiles and comes with additional costs, but otherwise wasn't subject to strict rules. That now appears to be changing.
Catch me if you can! Inside NASA's daring plan to save a space telescope from plunging back to Earth
California couple's desperate bid to save man, 28, from crocodile attack ends in tragedy after they heard screams coming from beach while on vacation in Mexico'Most beautiful girl in the world' Thylane Blondeau is married: Model stuns as she ties the knot with French DJ Ben Attal in Paris three months after getting engaged Sordid marriage secrets of country star Sam Hunt: Insiders reveal wife's brutal ultimatum... as singer's strange disappearance fuels Nashville whispers The signs I missed that I was sleeping next to a killer: My husband dismembered his secret girlfriend with a machete. Blue collar Democrat's VERY kinky history is exposed as she desperately grasps on to rural Washington seat World's first'pregnant man' Thomas Beatie reveals astonishing full story for the first time as his daughter turns 18... and confronts a hard truth about trans teens'Super, well done you!' Moment Kate stops to chat to 11-year-old boy in wheelchair during her Three Peaks Challenge as he's ...
Vets warn of 'ticking time bomb' for animal welfare as owners turn to AI instead of professional advice
Venezuela earthquake rescuers discover collapsed buildings were'held up by STYROFOAM' as catastrophic death toll reaches 1,430 Remains of at least 117 dogs found at California'no-kill' shelter as investigators uncover suspected burial site and 600 collars Two young sisters smile for the camera as they're arrested for stabbing mom-of-five to death in broad daylight Sun-kissed enclave named Florida's newest boomtown as telltale restaurant chain opens more stores in area Horrifying truth about'squishy dumplings': Fears as putrid fumes'sicken' mom and toys explode in children's hands... experts sound alarm on possible cancer links in new analysis Delaware senator rushed to hospital after getting into car crash while sitting in passenger's seat World's first'pregnant man' Thomas Beatie reveals astonishing full story for the first time as his daughter turns 18... and confronts a hard truth about trans teens Taylor Swift gets BOOED at Alan Jackson's final concert... as Travis Kelce ...
The Popularity Contests of "Love Island"
Most romantic reality TV would have us believe that dating is about getting married, or simply being chosen. In romance, Tolstoy's aphorism about the family is reversed. All unhappy couples are alike, and all happy couples are happy in their own way. Happiness in a couple is a private and fathomless world, a far cry from the mere shared sensibility of the happy family; we can only make fun of the impish, impenetrable languages of other couples, which exclude us. Yet we all know what it is to be unhappy in love.
10 Best Prime Day Streaming Deals, Including Half Off Apple TV (2026)
It's also about cheap streaming channels to watch on your cheap TV. Sure, Amazon Prime Day is better known for deals on tech, robot vacuums, and Apple products . But in recent years, it's also become a great time for Prime Day streaming deals and discounts. As long as you sign up through your existing Amazon Prime account (so make sure you're logged in before you try to shop these!) a lot of the major streamers--Apple TV, HBO, Peacock, Paramount Plus --are all offering nearly free two-month trials for the final day of Prime Day. It means you get to binge whatever you want while sitting by the pool during most of the summer, probably for a buck a month.
Bob Ross painting could sell for 70K to benefit Indiana public broadcasting
More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. 'The Joy of Painting' remains one of the most recognizable public television shows in U.S. history. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . Public broadcasting continues to face dire funding issues across the country, but PBS hero Bob Ross is here to help.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez Will Fight for Press Freedom--Until Trump Fires Her
President Trump probably can't get rid of her yet, but FCC commissioner Anna Gomez still checks her email every day to see if he has. Until then, she wants to stand up for the First Amendment. If you've given much thought to the Federal Communications Commission in recent years, it probably had something to do with Brendan Carr . The group's chairman since 2025, Carr has been on an ongoing, public rampage against freedom of speech: he's gone after late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel, threatened to revoke broadcast licenses over Iran war coverage, and targeted networks for their DEI policies. Disturbing as Carr's rhetoric and actions have been, he does count at least one opponent within the agency: Commissioner Anna Gomez, currently the lone Democrat among three FCC commissioners, has been vocal about the damage she thinks the agency is doing to American press freedom--and has repeatedly urged the public and the press, namely major networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC, to fight back. In May, Commissioner Gomez penned a stunning public letter to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, wherein she warned that the company--which owns ABC--was being subjected to "a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control, carried out through the weaponization of the FCC's authority as a federal regulator and aimed at pressuring a free and independent press." Gomez urged D'Amaro to fight the actions her own agency was taking, adding that "this is a fight worth having, and one that I am confident you will win." I wanted to talk to Commissioner Gomez about that bold letter, the risks she sees for the media and the American public under the Trump administration, and how she works alongside a chairman with whom she disagrees so fiercely. Gomez, whose FCC term ends this month, was generous enough to sit down and talk about all of it. You can read our conversation below, or listen to it on the podcast platform of your choice. KATIE DRUMMOND: Welcome, Commissioner Gomez. Thank you for being here. It's great to be here. I want to start, before we talk more about Disney and your letter and all the rest of it, with a very basic question for our listeners. What is your agency's basic role?