In news that will come as little surprise to anyone who’s binge-watched Apple TV+’s Widow’s Bay in the last five months, the hit comedy horror was the big winner at this year’s Emmys.

Across major and technical categories, the show came away with a total of 14 Emmys this year, the most for any single season of a comedy in the awards show’s history.

This included acting wins for cast members Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Matthew Rhys, who also made history as the first performer to win an Emmy for two leading performances in the same night, having also picked up a prize for his work in Netflix’s The Beast In Me.

Meanwhile, Hacks star Jean Smart set a new record of her own, as the first person to win Best Actress for every single season of a show’s run.

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With a total of eight wins across her career, she now equals Cloris Leachman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ record for the most acting wins at the Emmys.

Here’s the full list of who won what at the 2026 Emmys on Monday night…

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series

Kate O’Flynn (Widow’s Bay)

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series

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Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie

Matthew Rhys (The Beast In Me)

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series

Allison Janney (The Diplomat)

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Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series

Stephen Root (Widow’s Bay)

Outstanding Reality Competition

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series

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Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Limited Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie

Sally Field (Remarkably Bright Creatures)

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series

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Matthew Rhys (Widow’s Bay)

Outstanding Writing For A Comedy Series

Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series

Outstanding Variety Series

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The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series

Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series

Outstanding Limited Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie

Outstanding Drama Series

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Outstanding Comedy Series

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If one or both of your parents lives to 100 – or surpasses that mighty age – it might mean you’re likely to reap the rewards, too.

Not only do you get to spend more time with your parent(s), but a new study suggests children of centenarians are likely to also live longer – and they’re less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and hypertension, too.

What did the study find?

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Boston University, and Tufts Medical Center analysed data from three long-running studies. A total of 2,319 centenarians’ offspring were compared with 2,703 controls (the offspring of people who lived to age 85 or younger).

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Compared with people whose parents had shorter lifespans, centenarians’ offspring had a 42% lower risk of early death, the study found. They also had a 33% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and a 32% lower risk of high blood pressure.

Having a centenarian parent didn’t seem to affect cancer or stroke risk, however.

Daniel Lozano Gonzalez via Getty Images

“The overall consistency of these findings across these quite different studies was especially noteworthy and reinforces the idea that exceptional longevity runs in families,” said Eric Reed, a staff scientist in medicine and lead author of the study.

“This is not to say that lifestyle doesn’t count – healthy behaviours remain important for everyone.”

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Researchers said studying families with exceptional longevity can provide a window into the biology of healthy ageing and might even lead to treatments that could enhance lifespan, including in those who don’t inherit exceptional longevity from their parents.

Study co-author Paola Sebastiani, director of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science at Tufts Medical Center, ended: “These findings bring us closer to understanding the biological factors that may help protect against age-related disease and promote longer, healthier lives.”

What can I do for my own longevity?

If you’re keen to try and ‘lifemaxx’, Dr Asiya Maula, a GP and functional and lifestyle medicine specialist at The Health Suite, previously shared three habits she swears by for healthy ageing and longevity.

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1. Regular strength training and general exercise

“Building and maintaining muscle mass is so important, especially as we age,” Dr Maula said.

“I try to stick to at least two strength sessions a week, plus making sure I do some kind of daily movement each day, whether that be a brisk walk, some yoga or swimming.”

2. Getting at least seven hours sleep a night

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“Good quality sleep is fundamental to living a healthy life so I always try to prioritise getting at least seven hours each night,” the doctor added.

“That means sticking to a regular bedtime routine and turning off my phone at least an hour before bed each night.”

3. Following a Mediterranean diet

“Finally, I like to stick to a Mediterranean diet that prioritises whole foods, healthy fats and lean protein,” the GP ended.

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“Numerous studies have linked a Mediterranean diet to a reduced risk of chronic disease and increased lifespan. It’s also not overly restrictive, so it doesn’t feel like a diet, but becomes a way of life instead.”

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Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com

 Much has changed since we last looked at the idea of an alliance between Reform UK and the Conservatives. It was, for one thing, a whole prime minister ago (admittedly not as great a measure of political time as it once was), and the fortunes of several parties look different. Is the same true for the prospects of a united right?

A year ago, with a consistent ten-point poll lead and a divided opposition, Nigel Farage could credibly claim that he was going to win the next election and form a majority government with no help from anyone else. That lead has disappeared, and as we saw in Gorton and Denton, Caerphilly and Makerfield, the party’s opponents are willing to vote tactically to keep Reform out. This is not to say that a Reform majority government is impossible, but it is certainly not inevitable. Even if Labour’s Burnham bounce subsides, the damaging publicity around Reform’s finances is likely to endure.

Another factor is the removal of Keir Starmer, whose tenure was marked by a parade of unforced errors and an inability to articulate any kind of purpose: this, rather than the unpalatable but necessary decisions inherent in modern government, was the root of his unpopularity. Even allowing for the adage that elections are lost by governments rather than won by oppositions, Keir Starmer was the ideal incumbent for the Conservatives and Reform.

We might also consider recent policy announcements from the two parties, which suggest might they could find common ground in areas like net zero, welfare, defence and the European Convention on Human Rights.

All of that being the case, if Nigel Farage regarded coming to an agreement with the Conservatives as an unnecessary and avoidable risk, that is no longer the case – not because it isn’t risky, but because all options are risky. Leaders can employ a risk-averse “ming vase” strategy when blessed with double-digit polling leads, but when their party is level or slightly behind in the polls, that won’t cut it.

On the Conservative side, if they would once have been the junior partner in an alliance with Reform, they would now look much more like equals. In the new political landscape, should they look at such an arrangement with new interest? When we looked at a potential Conservative-Reform alliance last September, we found it was considerably weaker than the sum of its parts. Have the changing circumstances made a united right more viable?

The starting point is that a party leader will need the support, or at least acquiescence, of their voters for any kind of deal. We found previously that Conservative voters were much more likely to oppose working with Reform: any alliance would disproportionately damage the Tories. We have analysed this again based on people’s answers to two questions: first their preference in a head-to-head between Burnham and the other party’s leader (Badenoch if they are Reform voters, Farage if they are Conservatives); second their preference for a coalition comprising Reform and the Tories or between Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens. Based on this, we have three groups:

• Loyalists, who prefer the other right-wing party’s leader to Burnham and who prefer a Conservative-Reform coalition
• Defectors, who prefer Burnham to the other right-wing party’s leader and who do not prefer a Reform-Conservative coalition in the event of a hung parliament (they either prefer the left-wing coalition or say they don’t know)
• Waverers, who do not fall into either of these category

Last time, a slender majority of Conservative voters were loyalists; this majority has shrunk to a plurality of just 40 per cent. The growth has mostly come in defectors, who are up by 10 points to 31 per cent. While Reform voters remain broadly positive about such an arrangement, the proportion of loyalists among them has dropped 6 points to 75 per cent; waverers and defectors are both up slightly compared to last time. Not only do Conservative voters remain much less positive than Reform voters about a Conservative-Reform alliance, their disapproval is growing more quickly.

As the name suggests, we would expect loyalists to stick with a Reform-Conservative alliance and defectors to refuse to vote for it. If we assume that all the loyalists, half of the waverers and none of the defectors would vote for a Reform-Conservative alliance, then we would currently expect it to poll 28 per cent of the vote – much less than the share the two parties currently command between them.

Of course, the argument could be made that these defectors – of either shade of blue – are not actually going to end up supporting the party which they currently say they do. To assess this, we turn to our political map, where we have plotted the current support for each of the major parties, as well as the Reform and Conservative voters of interest. The size of the bubbles is proportional to the size of the voter group, and the closer bubbles are together, the more similar these groups are.

The Conservative defectors (who prefer Burnham to Farage and do not prefer a Tory-Reform coalition to a Labour-Lib Dem-Green one) are at around the “12 o’clock” point on the map, not especially close to any of the major party bubbles. However, they are still closest to the Conservative bubble and therefore have most in common with current Conservative voters. The Conservative waverer bubble overlaps with the overall Conservative bubble, suggesting that this is where the centre of gravity in Conservative opinion currently sits.

For Reform, the overall bubble and the Reform loyalist bubble largely overlap – unsurprisingly, given that three quarters of Reform voters are loyalists. However, the Reform waverer bubble overlaps with the bubble for people intending to vote for a party other than the major parties (mostly Restore Britain). Therefore, while the Conservative defectors look likely to end up voting Conservative at the next election (if there isn’t a unite the right alliance), the Reform defectors – and especially the Reform waverers – are closer to the bubble for “another party” than their own party’s bubble.

This suggests that the voters who Reform would risk losing from making a deal with the Conservatives are already at high risk of switching away from Reform (mostly to Restore Britain), whereas the Conservatives would risk losing voters who are otherwise not especially likely to switch away from their party.

We can confirm this with a simple question about whether people feel there is a political party which represents them. Overall, 49 per cent of people say that they can usually find a party which more or less represents their views, while 40 per cent say that none of the current parties really represent them. The remaining 11 per cent say they don’t know. The chart below illustrates how this question breaks down among the various groups of Conservative and Reform voters.

The Reform defector column here is the noteworthy: two thirds of these people – who are currently saying that they’ll vote for Reform – say that none of the British political parties represent them. That suggests that these voters will be difficult for Reform to retain. In contrast, the Conservative defectors divide evenly as to whether they feel any party represents them. Looking at the political map, one can understand it: these voters are in a “no-man’s land” between the Labour and Conservative bubbles, albeit closer to the Tories. We have written before about the challenge Badenoch faces in keeping her voter coalition together: she cannot make these centrist “12 o’clock” voters the cornerstone of policy offerings because that gives Reform a free hand on the right, but nor can she lose them.

Another question – how likely people are to vote for each party are to support each party at the next election on a scale from zero to one hundred – allows us to distinguish between committed supporters and floating voters. We can therefore derive three categories of voters for each party:

• Core voters, who say their likelihood of supporting that party is very high (75+ out of 100)
• Soft voters, whose likelihood to support is between 50 and 75
• Potential voters, who are currently intending to support a different party but who are at least slightly open (25-49) to supporting this party

Asking about the individual parties we find Labour slightly ahead, but with the combined Reform and Conservative vote share some 13 points higher than the Labour vote share. Notably, Reform have the smallest gap between their floor and ceiling and the highest proportion of their current voters being core voters, demonstrating that they retain a highly motivated base, but have limited scope for expanding their vote share.

When we ask the same question including a Conservative-Reform alliance in place of the two parties separately we find a somewhat different picture:

Merely because of facing a Conservative-Reform alliance, Labour’s vote share increases five points, and their ceiling also increases by five points. One might think that this is a manifestation of anti-right bloc tactical voting, but in fact only 8 per cent of these voters come from other parties on the left: 31 per cent of these new Labour voters would currently vote for the Conservatives, 29 per cent are undecided, and more than a quarter say they would not vote.

The Conservative-Reform alliance cuts Labour’s current lead from 7 points to 5 points. However, while the Reform vote share and the Conservative vote share add up to 41 per cent, the alliance only manages 28 per cent – some 13 points lower. This is even worse than a year ago, when we found that a Conservative-Reform alliance would poll 10 points less than the sum of its parts. The alliance also has a high floor and a low ceiling. Its ceiling is at 33 per cent, halfway between the Reform’s at 28 per cent and the Conservatives’ at 38 per cent. These are inauspicious numbers for a putative alliance.

If uniting the right has never been more important since we entered the era of five-party politics, it has also never been more difficult. An electoral alliance between Reform and the Conservatives would be doomed to fail, and the Conservatives have much more to lose from trying.

Full data at LordAshcroftPolls.com

The post Lord Ashcroft: Can the right unite? I’ve revisited the question after a summer of upheaval in the political landscape appeared first on Conservative Home.

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The post England is heading for street warfare appeared first on spiked.

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NEW YORK — A state lawmaker who gained national attention for his opposition to unchecked AI during a failed campaign for Congress this year is launching a $30 million effort to unite Democrats around regulating the technology, according to the organization’s new website.

New York Assemblymember Alex Bores is unveiling the organization — called “Who Decides” — on Tuesday to “build the winning Democratic answer to AI,” according to a website that was publicly available Monday night.

“Who Decides’ goal is that by 2028, Democratic candidates from the top of the ticket on down run with a common AI safety agenda,” reads an announcement on the site dated Tuesday. “That means addressing the harms people already see and the broader danger that increasingly powerful and out-of-control systems could destabilize our economy, our democracy, and our safety.”

It was not immediately clear whether Who Decides would be organized as a federal super PAC, 501(c)(4) nonprofit or other type of group. The website has a “donate” link that redirects to a webpage hosted by “Give Butter,” an organization focused on helping nonprofits fundraise. The announcement said the group would reject “corporate money or contributions from senior executives at frontier AI companies.”

Bores did not immediately respond to questions about the organization Monday night, including whether Bores, a sitting state lawmaker, personally fundraised for the group while holding public office. He is launching the organization with his former chief of staff, Anna Myers, the website says.

The apparent launch of Who Decides comes at a moment when the quickly-advancing technology has become a major political issue.

Last week, a former Anthropic researcher issued a dire warning that artificial intelligence has a chance of bringing about the end of humanity. The concerns from the researcher, Jacob Coxon, who also worked for OpenAI, were followed up by calls from the leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI, along with Elon Musk, to regulate the industry and slow development to build more guardrails.

Politicians have scrambled to respond, with both parties trying to coalesce around a policy agenda — and political message — on the rapidly evolving issue. Former President Barack Obama called last week for Democrats to focus on AI, and prominent party strategists from across the ideological spectrum gathered to begin mapping out a strategy.

President Donald Trump rejected recent calls from Republicans and Democrats to quickly regulate the industry in a spate of Monday social media posts.

“We don’t let five people write the laws for hundreds of millions of Americans,” Bores says in the launch announcement on the website, an apparent reference to the top executives in the AI industry. “There is no reason to let them write the rules for AI.”

The group says on the site it will focus on 11 states that it says will be key to the 2028 presidential primary and general election: South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It says it will conduct quarterly national and state polls, host national conferences and partner with local groups in the states.

Earlier this year, Bores lost the primary for retiring Manhattan Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat. His campaign largely centered on a push to regulate artificial intelligence following his work to pass the RAISE Act in the state Legislature, which aimed to enact safeguards for the technology. His campaign attracted a combined $21 million from super PACs backed by dueling factions of the AI community, which spent both in support and opposition of him. Democratic Assemblymember Micah Lasher ultimately won the primary and is all but assured to win in November in the deep-blue seat.

“The lesson Bores and Myers took from those fights was that confronting the AI industry is fertile political ground and that public demand for answers on AI policy exists but remains scattered,” the website said, referencing his congressional campaign. “What’s missing is a coalition capable of turning that energy into a governing consensus before the technology, the economic dislocation, and the partisan battle lines harden.”

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ICE TO SEE YOU: Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office is advising local governments that zoning and state environmental laws can stymie Immigration and Customs Enforcement from building or expanding detention facilities in their communities.

Those legal barriers — spelled out in a letter sent today by Hochul to local government leaders — represent the latest effort by her administration to halt ICE’s efforts in New York.

“We need localities focused on keeping our communities safe, which depends upon the efforts of local law enforcement, civil servants, and regulators,” Hochul wrote in the letter, which was exclusively obtained by Playbook. “While my administration will continue to demand answers and transparency from federal immigration authorities, should you become aware of these projects, my office is ready to partner with you to determine any appropriate next steps to protect our local communities.”

The missive is a new front in Hochul’s broader push to erect roadblocks against President Donald Trump’s sweeping deportation campaign — which includes a push to build or convert facilities in parts of New York.

New York lawmakers and Hochul agreed in May to a package of sweeping measures meant to limit Trump’s immigration enforcement.

Included in those measures were provisions that required expanded public notice — including holding at least two hearings — for the expansion or construction of an immigration detention facility. The law also prohibits local governments from providing financial benefits meant to offset the cost of a facility.

Hochul’s Republican critics have railed against the measures, which were first proposed during the aggressive deportation crackdown in Minnesota, which left two U.S. citizens dead.

Broome County Sheriff Fred Akshar is set to testify Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington on “the continuing tragedy of sanctuary laws.” Akshar’s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Local government officials have already sounded an alarm this year over ICE’s apparent efforts to expand the agency’s detention capacity by leasing or expanding sites in Batavia, Newburgh and Rochester.

Hochul wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin earlier this summer requesting more information on ICE’s New York plans.

Last month her administration got a reply.

An ICE official wrote to the governor that the agency has “not directed the establishment of a detention facility” in Rochester. In Batavia, ICE is “in the early stages” of weighing a bedspace and usage expansion at a site. And in the Hudson Valley, the agency confirmed that “an acquisition [is] underway to identify a new facility to lease through the General Services Administration” that would house its investigations, enforcement and removal operations.

Details were scant in the letter, but the response is the first time the federal government has formally laid out any of its plans for ICE expansion in New York to state officials.

On Monday in New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and state Attorney General Letitia James offered some of their own push back: two lawsuits seeking to stop the Trump administration from making it harder for immigrants lawfully in the U.S. to change their status.

The suits target a federal rule change set to take effect Friday. The change would give immigration agents more leeway to deny green cards or visas to lawful immigrants on the basis of being a “public charge” — someone who’s using social safety net programs. The rule change would allow agents to factor in the use of Medicaid or food assistance into their decision making.

The Trump administration has said the rule is necessary to ensure the country is not authorizing immigrants who drain public resources.

Mamdani countered that, rather than saving the U.S. money, the change will force immigrants to forgo routine medical care, increasing the likelihood of medical emergencies.

“None of this is abstract,” Mamdani said. “People could die as a result of these changes.”

James said the administration’s rule change is overly broad and flies in the face of more than 100 years of legal precedent.

“This public charge rule goes back to 1822, where Congress basically said that it only applies to individuals who cannot support themselves, not individuals who apply every now and then for public assistance because they fall on hard times,” she said. — Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta

From the Capitol

REGENTS EXAM PHASE-OUT COMING: The high school class of 2027 will be the final one required to pass the state Regents exams to graduate.

The state Board of Regents authorized the Education Department today to move forward with the next phase of the “New York Inspires” program. As part of that program, the board voted last year to adopt a framework that lets students demonstrate proficiency through other measures like projects or coursework. That framework will replace the Regents exam.

While the Regents will remain as an option, it will no longer be a requirement for high school graduation, beginning with students graduating in 2028, education officials said during the board’s monthly meeting today.

“For years, we looked at what elite private schools provide for their students and they do not worry about the Regents exam,” State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said. “They don’t even worry when you apply to colleges that it’s on their transcript.”

The department said it plans to advance the regulation changes to the board by February 2027 so it can implement the changes in the 2027-28 school year. The board unanimously passed a resolution to that effect today.

Districts will have to develop strategies for assessment that draw on multiple sources of evidence, including classroom performance, student work and state assessments.

Some Regents board members sought more clarity on resources to support families.

“What I did not hear was what resources, what tools do we have for parents and students who are in this purgatory period?” said Regents member Hasoni Pratts, a New York City public school parent.

The news comes as the state grapples with abysmal performance on this year’s reading exams — despite New York spending more per pupil than any other state in the country. Experts and advocates have been questioning what those results say about student learning, and precisely what led to those fluctuations. — Madina Touré

FROM CITY HALL

DEEPFAKE CRACKDOWN: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced today that his office seized control of a dozen domains used to create, disseminate and sell AI deepfake porn.

The sites in question featured AI-generated images and videos of roughly 1,200 individuals — primarily women and celebrities — engaging in sexually explicit activity.

“These horrific violations of privacy follow victims into their careers and personal lives, and take an immense toll on their emotional and mental well-being,” Bragg said. “We were able to seize these domains because a brave survivor stepped forward. And while victims of these sites are largely celebrities, we know that anyone can be a victim of these crimes, particularly in domestic violence cases.”

New York penal law prohibits the dissemination of pornography without a subject’s consent, and violations are punishable by up to a year in prison. That statute was updated in 2023 to explicitly prohibit AI-generated porn.

Bragg’s announcement comes as lawmakers in Albany and Washington grapple with the looming threat of artificial intelligence. But Bragg declined to comment on the potential role of the Manhattan DA’s office in working towards larger scale AI regulation.

“This is a crime in New York State,” he said, referring to the circulation of deepfake pornography. “We don’t have to talk about regulation, legislation. This is a crime now.” —Molly Reinmann

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

2028 VISION: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leaning into the speculation swirling around her 2028 aspirations.

“In some ways, I understand the interest. But I wanted to write to you today to be direct about what I’m focused on,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a fundraising email. “Frankly, I could not care less about titles or positions for myself. That’s not why I got into this work. What matters to me is changing this country so that it finally works for all of us, and that’s why my focus is on the decision working people around the country will make in the next 50 days.”

She added that her political operation is “mobilizing resources, not just to get me re-elected or build for a future campaign, but most importantly to win the midterms and take back the majority.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who’s been active on the trail boosting down-ballot candidates, has kept the door open for either a Senate run or a presidential bid in 2028 — though some progressives are urging her to aim for the White House.

Any clarity on her 2028 decision before this coming Election Day seems unlikely, though — especially given how “concerned” she says she is “by how some in our party are talking” about the midterms.

“There is a narrative taking hold in Washington that the Republicans are already cooked,” her email continued. “That kind of complacency is how we grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. … All of this is why I am not spending this fall thinking about myself. I am spending it working my butt off to deliver a majority in the House and the Senate.” — Madison Fernandez

A DIFFERENT LAUDER GIVES: Estee Lauder Chair William Lauder gave $500,000 to the super PAC backing Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.

Lauder’s contribution comes after his uncle, prolific GOP donor Ronald Lauder, ceased his political giving this year. Ronald Lauder was the principal backer of a super PAC aiding Republican Lee Zeldin’s 2022 bid against Hochul.

William Lauder wasn’t the only deep-pocketed titan to donate to the Blakeman PAC recently. Home Depot founder Ken Langone, a GOP megadonor who once led Republicans for Cuomo, gave $50,000. — Nick Reisman 

IN OTHER NEWS

— STALLED SECURITY: More than eight months into his term, Mamdani is still waiting on federal security clearance. (Gothamist)

— LEGIONELLA LOCATIONS: A Yankee Stadium cooling tower tested positive for the bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease, according to the New York City Health Department. (Daily News)

— SIGN LANGUAGE: A PAC funded by Knicks owner James Dolan launched a $250,000 billboard campaign backing Blakeman and blaming Hochul for an exodus from the state. (NY Post)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

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