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PARADISE WON

Hawaii is, again, Americans’ favorite state

Gorgeous beaches, dreamy weather, and the Aloha Spirit are real crowd-pleasers, it turns out.

7/14/25 8:10AM

There’s not always a lot that Americans agree on, but Hawaii being pretty nice certainly seems to be up there.

According to a new YouGov survey, a whopping 68% of Americans have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of the Aloha State, compared to just 15% who view Hawaii unfavorably. The island state’s victory builds on another YouGov study from 2021, where it won 69% of head-to-head matchups against other states, making it the most popular back then, too.

Alaska, the 49th state, which (like Hawaii) was only admitted to the union in 1959, came in second with a net rating of +47% — suggesting some potential correlation between the amount of time Americans have had to form an opinion on the state and how well it does in the ranking. Or how far away it is from the mainland US.

Americans’ favorite state chart — Sherwood News

The way people vote and whether they’re city- or suburb-dwellers also had a considerable influence, per YouGov, with states like New York and California seeing huge spreads in favorability depending on party affiliation and where respondents live.

Interestingly, US citizens’ two favorite states are also among the ones they’ve visited least, with only 21% of Americans having actually been to Hawaii and just 12% having visited Alaska, a separate YouGov survey found earlier this year.

The lowest scoring place in the poll technically isn’t a state: Washington, DC, was included in the survey and notched the lowest net favorability at 1% — just below Mississippi’s 2% score.

Go Deeper: Check out the full YouGov survey.

Millie Giles

INVISIBLE INK

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9/2/25

Paramount and Microsoft’s Activision agree to partner on a “Call of Duty” movie

Less than a month after forming, Paramount Skydance has landed another major piece of intellectual property. The studio said it’s signed a deal with Microsoft’s Activision to create a live-action “Call of Duty” film.

The competitive shooter is one of the most popular gaming franchises in the world and has been the US’s bestselling series for the past 16 years. The next title in the 22-year-old franchise, “Black Ops 7,” will debut in November.

Paramount, which closed its merger with Skydance in August, has had a summer of big deals. It acquired UFC broadcast rights in a $7.7 billion deal with TKO last month, following a $1.5 billion deal for “South Park” rights in July. The company also lured “Stranger Things” creators away from Netflix last month for a four-year film and TV development deal.

Paramount & Activision Team For ‘Call Of Duty’ Movie

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9/1/25

“Blinding Lights” just officially hit 5 billion streams on Spotify

Over the weekend, The Weeknd’s biggest hit crossed over the impressive threshold, with Spotify marking the feat with an Instagram post that the artist shared to his story.

According to Spotify data collated by Kworb, the song now has a staggering 5,000,010,581 streams on the platform, and is racking up nearly 1.5 million streams each day at the time of writing.

Blinding Lights crosses 5 billion chart — Sherwood News

While Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” released about two years before “Blinding Lights,” looks like it’ll be the next song to hit the 5 billion boundary, “Starboy,” another song from The Weeknd, might not be too far behind.

Besides those two megahits, The Weeknd has 26 other songs that have been streamed more than 1 billion times on Spotify — more than any other artist on the platform.

The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” is about to hit 5 billion streams on Spotify