Newsom quietly enacted the controversial part of a high-speed rail oversight bill and may now veto the part his watchdog says he needs for transparecy and accountability, sources tell CBS California.
The National Hurricane Center posted a hurricane warning for western Hawaii's Kauai County as Hurricane Lowell moved toward the area as a Category 2 storm.
An Amazon cargo plane overshot a runway at Miami International Airport and crashed into two vehicles before coming to a stop and bursting into flames. Five people were killed.
Corie Walsh charged with murder after two-year-old Barrett found dead in basement of Illinois family home last week
An Illinois woman charged with killing her two-year-old son had been closely following the murder trial of Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy and was texting friends about the case just hours before her son was found dead, prosecutors said.
Corie Walsh, 40, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after her son, Barrett, was found dead in the basement of the family’s suburban Chicago home last Tuesday, according to court records obtained by NBC Chicago.
Switzerland has a population of 9,154,242. And its federal government just launched a pilot program to test open source alternatives to Microsoft 365 on 3,000 workstations, reports the blog It's FOSS. "That's about 7% of the federal workforce."
The target is to complete the migration by end of 2027... On September 3, 2026, the Federal Council published results of "PoC BOSS", a feasibility proof-of-concept involving 172 federal employees who tested the openDesk suite, a German open-source collaboration platform. During the proof-of-concept phase, core office tasks like document processing and email received positive assessments, while large-scale video conferencing still showed technical limitations. Based on the 'success' of the PoC phase with 172 employees, the pilot is now launched for 3,000 employees...
According to Matthias Stürmer, professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Microsoft's supremacy in public institutions poses three problems that are driving this migration. First is the risk of foreign access. US cloud legislation could expose Swiss government data to foreign authorities. Second is the risk to service continuity, as dependency on a single foreign vendor creates operational risk. The third risk is the escalating costs as proprietary licensing fees are rising with no Swiss leverage.
Switzerland's military cybersecurity unit, Cyber Command, is not waiting for the civilian pilot. It is already poised to replace Microsoft 365 entirely with openDesk by October 2026. It is pretty much the same reason. Military doesn't want foreign governments accessing sensitive Swiss data.
The article notes that during the pilot phase, the new system runs in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it. But the article's author speculates that "If the pilot is successful, we might expect the migration to continue on all the 54,000 workstations owned by the federal administrations."
Counter-measures covering several sectors come after Trump announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods
Canada is set to impose retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of American imports early on Tuesday, escalating a trade fight with its largest trading partner as tensions between US president Donald Trump and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney intensify.
The tariffs, which take effect at 12.01am on Tuesday, will range from 15% to 50% and apply to products covering C$27.6bn in imports from the US. The measures will target sectors including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics – industries that have been most affected by US tariffs.
OS index examines which ‘urban heat islands’ suffer the most – and which cope the best with rising temperatures
Portsmouth, Leicester, Exeter, Bristol and Nottingham will be among the cities that warm the most by the end of this century as global heating turns British cities into urban heat islands, according to research.
Analysis from Ordnance Survey (OS) has created a heat vulnerability index for all cities in Great Britain. Portsmouth, which sits on the south coast of England and is home to 208,000 people, is the most vulnerable to extreme heat today and into the future, according to the research from the OS, the Met Office and the data analysis company 4 Earth Intelligence.
Focus likely on whether plane touched down too late in its glide path on to tarmac to enable it to stop safely
Federal investigators have started collecting evidence, including a flight data recorder, following the Sunday crash of an Amazon cargo jet at Miami international airport that killed five people and injured five others.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), announced a preliminary investigation into the Amazon Air flight 7598 accident involving a Boeing 767-33 Alpha operated by 21 Air, an all-cargo airline.
Qinwen Zheng comes from 0-5 down in the first set to beat Iga Swiatek in two, while Mirra Andreeva, Elena Rybakina and Alexander Blockx also make the last eight
Back on Armstrong, we’re still level but at 4-4, Potapova playing with confidence and poise. She holds to 30, and Andreeva must now serve to stay in set one.
Zheng and Swiatek are out on court; Zheng, the Olympic champion, had to come through qualifying after missing time with an elbow injury, but two weeks of competition have brought her into the main event nicely loose. I’d be surprised if she finds a way to win here, but she did at those Olympics, so knows she can.
North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick said on Monday he believes his program “totally” has an atmosphere of following rules amid an investigation into its conduct.
“Obviously everybody’s responsible, including me, for doing things properly,” Belichick said. “And we intend to do that.”
BOZEMAN, Mont. - A man was arrested following a SWAT standoff at a residence on Saxon Way on Monday morning after an individual was stabbed, according to the Bozeman Police Department (BPD).
Last year the writing program at the University of Baltimore used an app that tracks students while they're writing in Google Docs, offering teachers a video playing back revisions "with a scoreboard of all the edits, pastes and minutes spent on it," writes the Washington Post. "Is it surveillance? Yes, I think obviously," says the program's director.
But was there a better way?
She is one of a dozen educators around the country who told The Post that they're experimenting with a different approach to student use of generative artificial intelligence this school year. Teachers and professors are throwing out old assignments, installing new policies and protocols, and incorporating AI built for the classroom, rather than feeling forced to choose between returning to pencil and paper or acting like the AI police.
Her new lesson plan even incorporates generative AI in a controlled way to let her evaluate students' critical thinking skills. She created chatbots using BoodleBox, the university's AI vendor, that allow instructors to see both sides of the conversation. For an assignment testing students' ability to make evidence-based arguments, they participate in a simulated school board meeting about banning books. It involves debating chatbots designed by Zeleny with names like the Confrontational Parent. Writing students usually turn in business proposals and research papers. This semester, instructors are starting to ask instead for transcripts of conversations a student had with a chatbot, a handwritten outline of their composition, and a video reflection of how they felt about the work. "In a lot of ways, we have made these assignments harder, but writing should have always had more detailed checkpoints along the way," she said.
The Smyrna Eagles (1-0) defeated Red Lion Christian Academy (0-1), 38-0, on September 4, during the first week of Delaware high school football competition.
BEAR, DE — Smyrna quarterback Drew Marks stood in the shotgun formation with his feet at the Red Lion 40 yard line, sophomore running back Terrell Ingram to his right, three receivers lined up to the left and a lone receiver on the right. Marks caught the snap and surveyed the field, but was unable to find an open receiver from the pocket. The senior signal caller rolled to his left looking for a throwing lane and found a small window to deliver the ball to junior receiver Mikiah Jackson.
Jackson was the lone receiver on the right and streaked toward the left sideline during his route. As Marks rolled to his left, Jackson turned his route upfield and Marks lofted a pass toward Jackson’s back shoulder. Jackson made the initial catch as he spun around contorting his body to make the grab, but as he did, the ball came looseand got tipped in the air. Jackson fell to the ground as the ball descended, but Jackson quickly refocused and lunged from the ground to complete the catch before the ball hit the grass.
Jackson’s highlight catch put the Eagles in the red zone and in position for their fourth score of the first half.
“I just saw it and I knew I could make some way to catch it and I caught it,” Jackson said postgame.
Jackson finished the game with over 100 yards receiving and three receiving touchdowns in Smyrna’s, 38-0, victory over Red Lion, Friday night, ushering in a new season of Delaware high school football.
“It feels amazing to play against another jersey,” Smyrna sophomore Amari Ashley said postgame. “It feels good to go out there and show everybody what we can do.”
The Eagles played well on both sides of the ball, scoring on all four of its first half offensive drives getting production through the air and on the ground.
The Eagles first touchdown came on their opening drive in which they traversed 70 yards downfield in 13 plays. The drive was capped off by a four yard touchdown run from senior Chrystian Carroll. Smyrna’s second touchdown was scored by Jackson on a 50-yard catch and run at the end of the first quarter.
Jackson scored his second touchdown of the first half on Smyrna’s subsequent drive, before making the tip catch on the Eagles’ fourth drive which ended in a one yard touchdown run from Ingram.
“We’re just gonna go at you every play,” Jackson said about what makes Smyrna’s offense dynamic. “I mean, [it’s] a tempo offense, so we don’t let up our foot on the gas and we just go at you every play and drill it down.”
Smyrna’s fourth scoring drive was set up by an interception from sophomore Amari Ashley as Red Lion threatened in Smyrna territory. Ashley’s interception was the first of two interceptions for the Eagles throughout the game and was a part of a strong defensive showing for the program.
“I saw the quarterback drop back and then I saw them do the post-wheel that we study everyday,” Ashley said describing his interception. “So, I just did everything we did in practice and went up and got it. Just trying to be an athlete.”
Smyrna’s defense never allowed Red Lion to generate any offensive momentum and when the Lions made it into Smyrna territory, the Eagles were able to stop them before they reached the endzone.
Red Lion found some offensive success through the air with key throws from freshman quarterback Chase Manlove and strong runs by senior Jordon Jones, but the Lions were unable to string those plays together and breakthrough against Smyrna’s defense.
Red Lion will have a week off before they play again on Saturday, September 19, against Long Island Lutheran High School from New York. That game will be played in Bear at 1:00 p.m. and will be the first out of state test for last season’s Class 2A champion.
Smyrna’s next game will be a road game against Frederick High School on Thursday, September 10, in Frederick, Maryland. This game will be the first of two out of state opponents Smyrna faces before the program takes on its first Class 3A opponent in Middletown on October 2.
New York City mayor confirms he will attend memorial service but declines to respond to Giuliani’s remarks
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony.
In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”
An Amazon cargo plane overran a runway at Miami International Airport and struck several vehicles, killing at least five people and injuring five others, officials said.
Prince Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior working members of the royal family in January 2020, and this position, the letter said, "will continue to be fully respected."
Advocacy groups expand legal challenges and condemn president’s ‘self-serving attempts to take over midterms’
A cluster of advocacy groups that boast veteran lawyers, voting experts and ex-judges have expanded legal challenges to Donald Trump’s authoritarian executive orders on voting and other presidential actions they see as a “war” on the rule of law in the US.
Heavy legal opposition to Trump’s two executive orders on elections to curb voting rights and supplant the authority of states on election matters has come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and kindred groups.
This article was updated on 7 September 2026 to reflect that members of the Democratic Attorneys General Association have filed suit, not the Daga itself.
"It's been a year that I hope we never do it again," said Lander Nicodemus, owner of Torrington Livestock Markets, which auctions about 450,000 head of cattle each year.
Minister condemns groups behind Hampshire disorder and says officers were injured as they repelled ‘aggression’
Batons and synthetic pepper spray were used to repel hundreds of masked, black-clad vigilantes in Portsmouth on Sunday, it has emerged, as the policing minister said officers had been injured as they repelled organised “aggression”.
After police contained the weekend’s second disruptive demonstration against asylum seekers travelling to the UK in small boats, it was claimed that officers in Hampshire were pushed off their motorbikes and pelted with bricks. Sarah Jones, the Home Office minister, condemned groups behind the disorder for promoting “racism and thuggery”.
Pope Leo XIV unveiled the portrait before celebrating Mass with his fellow Augustinian brothers at the Sanctuary of Our Mother of Good Counsel in the medieval village of Genazzano, south of Rome.
Sarah Jones tells MPs ‘those responsible should expect to face the consequences’
Healey says Andy Burnham set out in his statement to MPs last week what he thought had gone wrong
The fundamentals of our economy [were] hollowed out through a series of past policy decisions, political power was centralised, weakening the relationships between the people, the businesses and the institutions who can make things happen beyond Whitehall. The economic enablers were privatised and outsourced, leaving accountability to a thicket of arm’s length bodies and regulators, too often without the predictability or the pace that underpins a thriving market economy. And our country was deindustrialised as the cost to make anything, to build anything here soared, and our dependence on unreliable sources grew, including in areas critical to our national security and sovereignty.
Let me be clear, I recognise that the costs of business, its energy bills, regulation, burdens, planning constraints, labour costs, have grown since Covid and I want to draw the line.
And whether it is the cost of business or the cost of living, the only way we deal with these in the long term is growth.
Ed Miliband to reassert support for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution in move likely to draw fierce criticism from US and Israel
Ed Miliband will announce what he has described as a broad reset of the UK’s relations with Israel on Tuesday, promising the government will take a more active approach in supporting the Palestinian cause.
In an intervention that is expected to draw fierce criticism from the US and Israel, the foreign secretary will impose a UK ban on the trade in goods and some services from illegal Israeli settlements.
It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons since the release of NetBSD 9.4 in April 2024. It is fully compatible with NetBSD 9.0.
This also marks the end-of-support for all NetBSD-9.x releases and the netbsd-9 branch. All users still on this branch are urgently asked to update to a more recent release like NetBSD 11.0 (with 11.1 upcoming at the end of this month) or NetBSD 10.2 (to be released in a few days).
Atlanta, Georgia — Georgia has absorbed an estimated $20.1 billion in tariff costs since President Donald Trump returned to office, equivalent to about $4,771 per household, according to new data from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.
The figure represents tariffs paid by Georgia importers and converted into a household equivalent; it does not mean each Georgia household directly paid $4,771 in tariffs. Georgia ranked fourth nationally in total estimated tariff impact, behind California, Texas and Michigan. Automobile imports accounted for the largest share of the state’s burden.
Bryan Riley, director of the foundation’s Free Trade Initiative, said tariff costs vary significantly by product. Clothing can face substantial increases, while other goods experience smaller price effects that accumulate across household purchases.
“Almost everything costs a little bit more,” Riley told The Center Square, arguing that higher prices can disproportionately affect lower-income consumers.
The foundation’s estimates use trade data supplied by Trade Partnership Worldwide and cover tariffs imposed through both executive action and federal statute. The organization plans to update its state-level figures quarterly.
Trump has defended tariffs as a way to protect domestic industries and generate federal revenue. His administration has also announced a 50% tariff on Canadian automobiles, trucks and auto parts scheduled for Jan. 1, while a 50% tariff on Canadian steel is already in effect.
Separate Tax Foundation estimates also conclude that tariffs raise consumer costs while generating substantial federal revenue.
Why use an installer to install an operating system, when you can just do it yourself, step by step?
In this post I will cover the installation process of the NetBSD operating system, including disk level encryption. Instead of using the standard installation program (sysinst), I decided to install NetBSD “from scratch”, as a way to dive into the internals, and learn more about the nuts and bolts of this great operating system.
Friedrich Merz said his conservative CDU was shaken ‘to its very foundations’ after far-right victory in Saxony-Anhalt
A “shocked” and chastened Friedrich Merz has vowed to stay in office despite the far right’s triumph in a state election that has brought anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin politicians within striking distance of power.
The German chancellor, appearing ashen-faced in front of reporters in Berlin, said on Monday that the landslide victory by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt had shaken his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) “to its very foundations”.
As he prepares for the upcoming international window, the US head coach spoke about Folarin Balogun, the LA Olympics and dual national players
It’s been two months since the US men’s national team crashed out of the World Cup in disappointing fashion, and their head coach, Mauricio Pochettino, is back at work.
The former Tottenham and PSG manager was largely viewed as a short-term hire when he joined the US in 2024, brought on to help the team capitalize on their first home World Cup in more than three decades. Along the way, Pochettino and US Soccer warmed to the idea of a contract extension, one they finalized in August.
The US will play four friendlies in late September and early October against Peru, Chile, Mexico and Canada, but that stretch of games pales in comparison to the larger task at hand. Pochettino must guide the US to qualification for the 2030 World Cup, of course, but the Argentinian – and the federation – have more ambitious goals that involve reshaping the structure of soccer in the United States.
The EV blog Electrek reports:
A Clinton Township, Michigan man was charged $418 for a single EV charging session at Elder Hyundai's Macomb Township store after finding the charger listed as publicly available on the EVgo app, but didn't discover the charges until after wrapping up his 40-ish minute charging session. "I was flabbergasted," explained Stanley Kpenkann, who had been driving a rented Chevy Bolt EV at the time. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be saddled with a bill of $418 for a charging session."
After calling EVgo to report the error, he found that the exorbitant charge wasn't a mistake at all - Elder Hyundai was charging customers an eye-gouging $5 per kWh, plus another $5 for every minute connected.
A local news report notes that "After back-and-forth with EVgo, the company processed what it called a goodwill refund of $405." (And the dealership argued their charger was reserved for its own customers and vehicles, so they set prices high to deter outside use.)
But Electrek argues the story "speaks to much larger problems among the EV charging business in particular and car dealerships in general..."
[In June] Plug & Play EV's Steve Birkett took to LinkedIn to call out his local Hyundai dealer in Union, NJ for charging a ridiculous $15 per kWh to top off his IONIQ 5 (!)... Even worse, he noted that a number of area dealerships that had listed their ports as "public" were actively discouraging public use with signs and stickers designed to turn people away...
[U]nlike gas stations, EV charge point operators in many states aren't required to clearly advertise what they'll charge before a driver plugs in in the same way that gas stations are: with clearly legible signage that's visible from the street.
Three men on trial for killing Jake and Callum Robinson and Jack Carter Rhoad in Baja California in 2024
The alleged killers of two Australian surfers and an American at a Mexican surfing hotspot in 2024 have gone on trial in the border resort where the three were murdered.
(The Center Square) – The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people ushered in a multitude of federal-level changes to prevent such an event from happening again.
(The Center Square) – Recently released test results show new lows for Michigan students on standardized exams, even as the state continues to spend historic amounts on education.
Hamza Chowdhury says most of his fellow Green Camden councillors back him to contest 8 October byelection
Zack Polanski is facing unexpected opposition from his own party in his attempt to fight the Holborn and St Pancras byelection for the Greens, with a local councillor saying he is also seeking the nomination, and that the seat does not need “a politician you’ll only see on a leaflet”.
The intervention by Hamza Chowdhury, a Green representative on Camden council in north London, came as the date for the byelection was confirmed for 8 October, after Keir Starmer’s formal resignation as an MP.
Masked British protesters snarled traffic at a busy passenger ferry port and tried to block buses carrying newly arrived migrants, drawing criticism from virtually all corners.
Chief of nuclear watchdog says secret Assad-era facility would have been able to produce fissile material
A nearly complete nuclear reactor built secretly during the rule of the toppled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad would have been able to produce fissile material for possible use in nuclear weapons, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog has revealed.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month visited two sites, one in Deir ez-Zor and a second in an undisclosed location identified to them by Syrian authorities.
Saxony-Anhalt win part of wider trend driven by mainstream policy failures and gradual normalisation of far right ideas
The numbers speak for themselves: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party that dabbles in Nazi imagery, distinguishes between “biological” and “passport” Germans, and is too extreme even for France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen, nearly doubled its score in Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt to 43.8% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the centre-right CDU of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, collapsed to 17.2%, less than half its total in the same race five years ago, and the centre-left SPD – Germany’s other main party of government for the past 60-odd years – scraped 9.3%. The least that can be said is that the centre did not hold.
The AfD may not end up controlling Germany's Saxony-Anhalt state despite a landslide election victory, but the far-right party's "dream result" sends a clear message.
Du Quoin, Illinois — Illinois state Rep. Dave Severin says an AI-manipulated photo falsely made it appear that he was warmly posing with Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, triggering threatening and hostile comments online.
The original photo was taken Aug. 28 at the Du Quoin State Fair after Severin introduced Pritzker to constituent Dan “Curley” Summers. The governor’s public schedule confirms he attended the fair’s opening that evening.
Severin said someone later altered the image to place Pritzker’s arm around him and make both men appear to be giving thumbs-up gestures. He called the edited version “100% bogus.” The manipulated image was then circulated with a caption claiming Severin had endorsed Pritzker’s reelection campaign.
The Center Square reported that the post drew more than 500 comments, including threats and hateful messages directed at Severin. He later publicly denied endorsing Pritzker and reaffirmed his support for Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey.
Pritzker’s campaign did not respond before publication, though the governor has previously criticized deceptive political uses of artificial intelligence and said AI-generated political material should be clearly labeled.
The incident comes as AI-generated political content becomes increasingly common in Illinois campaigns. Bailey’s campaign has also openly used AI-created images in social media posts, according to Capitol News Illinois and NPR Illinois.
The AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt marks a turning point for Germany – but perspective is importantExpert commentjon.wallace
Ulrich Siegmund’s highly successful campaign points to a more durable AfD electorate and flags the tests ahead for Chancellor Merz’s government, the CDU and the federal institutions that have shaped post-war German democracy.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD)’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt’s election is a historic breakthrough and, without doubt, a turning point in German democracy. Since 1945 no party labelled extreme right has secured such a win in a state election.
The party won 43.8 per cent of the vote on 6 September, more than doubling its 2021 result. It now holds 39 of the state Landtag’s 83 seats, though this is three short of an absolute majority. The question of who will govern Magdeburg is therefore still open.
BSW, the new party of former Die Linke (‘The Left’) leader Sahra Wagenknecht, succeeded in crossing the 5 per cent threshold. Its positions on migration are not that remote from those of the AfD in some respects. Its entry into the Landtag gives it a potential role in forming a government in Saxony-Anhalt.
Beyond the political emotion, the result should be treated cautiously. Its main significance clearly lies in the way the AfD has mobilized voters and kindled a more positive political appeal. That may prove more consequential than whether the AfD manages to form a government.
That said, Saxony-Anhalt is one of Germany’s least populated states, and the AfD’s victory should therefore be considered according to the demographic scale. If not a seismic political event, it can at least be interpreted as the forewarning tremor of an approaching earthquake – if the appeal of mainstream parties keeps eroding. The CDU, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, saw its share of the vote fall to 17.2 per cent.
A state shaped by decline
For its low demographics, Saxony-Anhalt is a useful laboratory to analyse the political transformation at work in Germany and Europe. Depopulation has left many smaller communities ageing and struggling to sustain local services. Saxony-Anhalt experienced a substantial decline since reunification to around 2.12 million inhabitants today. The accompanying closure of public services has reinforced residents’ belief that the region is neglected by mainstream parties.
The state has also been hit by industrial restructuring. The chemical industry is central to the region’s socioeconomic identity, but high energy costs and weak demand have heightened pressure on the sector. Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is one of the last major employers in a region whose unemployment rate stood at 8.2 per cent in August 2026, compared with 6.5 per cent nationally.
Insolvencies should not be mistaken with factory closures, but the figures are telling: corporate insolvency filings rose by 23.9 per cent in the state in 2025, more than twice the national increase of 10.3 per cent. The prospect of further plant closures made the future of skilled employment a sensitive political concern in the campaign.
The figures on migration present a paradox here. Saxony-Anhalt has a comparatively low foreign-national share. Approximately 7.9 per cent of the population were immigrants at the end of 2025, compared with around 14.9 per cent nationally – yet the issue has consistently topped voters’ concerns for over a decade, a paradox familiar from research on Eastern Germany.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has shaped its narratives around anxieties about public services, security and industrial decline, presenting migration as a contributing factor.
From rejection to adhesion
Analysing the rise of the National Rally (RN), French political scientists speak of the shift from a passive protest vote (‘vote de protestation’) to an active support vote (‘vote d’adhésion’).
Saxony-Anhalt suggests that such a shift has occurred. In July, 36 per cent of voters trusted the AfD most to solve the state’s problems, compared with just 9 per cent before the 2021 election. 44 per cent preferred an AfD-led government. The electorate’s motivation has clearly shifted from punishing the CDU to granting the AfD power. Why?
AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund’s campaign adopted an upbeat, personalized style, combining large public events with a forceful social media presence. The slogan ‘Alles ist möglich’ (‘Everything is possible’) was launched in June, replacing the old negative slogan ‘enough is enough’.
This strategy paid off. Mobilization was quite exceptional. Preliminary voter-flow analysis estimates that the AfD gained 157,000 former non-voters and 83,000 former CDU voters. Digital campaigning cannot alone explain the AfD’s electoral success. But established parties showed far less inventiveness in reaching disengaged voters.
Logically, mainstream parties throughout Europe should respond by reconsidering their strategies. France’s experience with the RN shows the limits of relying on political stigma to combat the hard right. Germany’s ‘Brandmauer’ (‘firewall’) around hard right parties has also ceased to contain the AfD electorally. New thinking is needed.
Three seats short: an opportunity for the AfD?
The AfD’s near-majority may itself become a political advantage. Three additional MPs would be enough to give it an absolute majority. Siegmund can therefore pressure CDU representatives to defect to his party or vote for his election as minister-president. Even unsuccessful approaches could expose divisions within the CDU and weaken the credibility of an alternative government.
BSW has rejected joining a ‘firewall’ and expressed willingness to cooperate with the AfD on individual policies, particularly on Russia and energy. But it has ruled out electing Siegmund as minister-president.
The CDU, SPD and Greens hold only 31 seats together, rendering a majority against the AfD impossible without support from the Left Party or the BSW. But the CDU’s refusal to cooperate with either the AfD or the Left complicates this picture – and could lead to a prolonged impasse.
That could work to Siegmund’s advantage, allowing him to argue that the other parties are playing an undemocratic game by preventing the largest party from governing.
The consequences beyond Magdeburg
The AfD’s victory also piles pressure on German Chancellor Merz, whose unpopularity is already a significant problem. The state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on 20 September will present another immediate test, with the AfD leading in recent polls.
A further defeat could intensify demands within the CDU for a change of strategy or even leadership. Any attempt to replace Merz as chancellor would, however, require a parliamentary majority through Germany’s constructive vote of no confidence. There is no indication at this point that the SPD, the CDU’s coalition partner, would support a move against the chancellor.
The AfD’s near-majority may itself become a political advantage…Siegmund can pressure CDU representatives to defect to his party or vote for his election as minister-president.
The most significant repercussion will surely be on the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German parliament. Saxony-Anhalt’s government has four votes in the federal chamber and could use them to oppose federal legislation, especially on state finances or administration. Four votes cannot obstruct federal bills, but they may become decisive in close motions and lend the party strategic weight.
An AfD-led state government would also amplify the party’s calls for an end to sanctions on Russia and military support for Ukraine. But it would remain very much rhetorical for now: foreign policy is a federal responsibility and the Land’s four votes would offer only limited scope for obstruction.
Saxony-Anhalt’s AfD was classified as a right-wing extremist endeavour by the state intelligence service in November 2023. That does not prohibit the party from governing. But should it take control, its implementation of its proposals concerning education, migration, policing and cultural institutions will be closely watched, particularly measures that may violate constitutional rights or federal law.
Challenges would mostly arise through Saxony-Anhalt’s constitutional court, ordinary administrative courts and, where relevant, the Federal Constitutional Court. Judicial scrutiny depends on concrete acts and the relevant procedures, not a government’s programme as such. The appointment of officials and the control of state institutions will therefore deserve as much attention as legislation itself.
Much will be written about this vote. But some perspective is important. The AfD received 576,037 second votes in a state with 1.71 million eligible voters. That is roughly 1 per cent of Germany’s 59.2 million strong electorate. The breakthrough is very localized for now.
Whether it remains so depends on how far Siegmund’s campaign recipe can be replicated – and if the AfD can now turn electoral backing into durable governing power.
Hundreds of men, some in balaclavas, try to prevent asylum seekers’ processing, two days after similar scenes in Dover
Downing Street has condemned the “thuggish and intimidating behaviour” of far-right activists who blocked roads in Portsmouth when a boat carrying asylum seekers arrived in the city, two days after similar scenes in Dover.
Hundreds of men, some dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, tried to stop the arrivals from being transported for processing until 3am, when police removed them with threats of arrest.
James Frith says patients may be less willing to share data as new figures show a rise in opt-outs
Concern is being raised about Palantir’s work with the NHS as new figures showed tens of thousands of patients have withdrawn their data from use in research projects.
James Frith, the health innovation minister, said he was worried about “mistrust” of the US defence and health tech company and “the impact it could have on people’s willingness to share data with the NHS”.
AfD’s Chrupalla continues in this vein, saying the German public wants to see a change in direction, and specifically saying the electorate is “fed up” as the government keeps “transferring billions of our tax money to Ukraine … instead of using it for our own population.”
He says the party has “a clear mandate” to rule in Saxony-Anhalt and will hold discussions with others about what can be done.
The Pitt Rivers Museum, one of the world's leading institutions for anthropology, ethnology and archaeology, holds over 6,000 artifacts from the Naga community in India.
Estimates suggest drop in production with vineyards also concerned ‘smoke taint’ from wildfires may affect quality
French vineyards hit by severe drought and heatwaves are expected to report a 30-year low in wine production after the country’s hottest ever recorded summer, according to the agriculture ministry.
Initial estimates suggest winemakers will produce just under 34m hectolitres from this year’s harvest: a drop of 6% on last year, and 17% less than the 2021-2025 average.
Predicted hot and dry weather in growing areas in eastern Australia identified as ‘one of the key issues’ that will affect food prices over next 12 months
The most severe El Niño weather event on record threatens to push food prices higher this year, experts say, piling pressure on households already struggling with the post-pandemic spike in grocery bills and complicating the Reserve Bank’s efforts to bring inflation back under control.
The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast El Niño will peak in late spring or summer and “reach levels above the warmest observed since reliable records began in 1950”.
Matt Clifford forced to stand down amid disquiet from senior MPs over his new full-time job at AI company
The chair of the UK government’s “moonshot” science and technology research unit has been forced to stand down after taking a job with the San Francisco AI firm Anthropic, in a move senior MPs called a “clear conflict of interest”.
Matt Clifford announced last week that he was taking a full-time job working for the company behind the Claude chatbot, “leading its engagement” with governments outside the US – including the UK. But he retained his leadership at the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which funds frontier science and tech projects.
"Billionaire Bill Ackman's life was upended this February when his 26-year-old daughter collapsed in her Brooklyn apartment, suffering a brain hemorrhage that would render her unable to move, speak or see," writes the Washingon Post. But then...
The hedge fund manager did what any good father would do — at least, any father with vast financial resources and what friends describe as a "Mr. Fix-It" tendency. He sprung into action, getting her topline care at New York City's Mt. Sinai Hospital and consulting a network of well-connected friends all over the world. He helped her access a novel cell therapy that has been gaining traction among longevity enthusiasts, who are seeking ways to prolong human life. And then — motivated by a newfound desire to accelerate scientific research — he vowed to spend more than $400 million to launch an institute dedicated to longevity and brain health... He posted this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in May, gave his daughter Lucy's medical team a first-time emergency authorization to transplant mitochondria — the energy-producing part of human cells — from her leg muscle to her eyes, in the hopes that the tiny cell powerhouses would facilitate healing in her optic nerves and perhaps even restore her vision.
Ackman's story highlights the increasingly prominent role of the ultra-wealthy in making expensive medical bets on longevity treatments and other novel therapies, altering the direction of research as federal funding for science declines in the second Trump administration. But his saga is a deeply personal one, spurred by his daughter's medical crisis. The focus on longevity by Ackman, who made billions on Wall Street as a hedge fund manager, is aligned with similarly ambitious efforts from some of Silicon Valley's biggest names. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has backed Retro Biosciences, a start-up whose goal is to add 10 healthy years to the human lifespan through cellular reprogramming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is reportedly a funder of Altos Labs, which focuses on cellular rejuvenation and resilience... Billionaire investor Peter Thiel, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison are also deeply invested in life-extension methods and attempts to rewrite the biology of aging...
The therapy given to Ackman's daughter Lucy, known as mitochondrial transplantation, is of great interest not only to people who have suffered injuries, but to longevity-focused scientists who believe that mitochondria may hold promise for reversing some of the effects of aging... In recent years, scientists have discovered that mitochondria have many other functions beyond converting food into energy. They serve as clearinghouses for damaged cells, opening up the possibility that they can help with cell regeneration and healing, said Daria Mochly-Rosen, professor of chemical and systems biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and co-author of " The Life Machines: How Taking Care of Your Mitochondria Can Transform Your Health."
"I am one of those who believes that focusing on mitochondrial health is a way to address many human diseases, including aging itself," she said. "It's exciting."
Plans for a large reorganisation of local government have been put on hold after the government received new legal advice that suggested they might not comply with the law.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the review was to ensure the process was robust and aligned with the new government’s aim to “rewire the state”, and followed “updated and privileged legal advice”.
US embassy says Downing Street’s plan to give BBC, ITV and other established media more online visibility carries risk of ‘censorship’
The Trump administration has raised “serious concerns” over Downing Street’s plan to force YouTube and other digital platforms to hand more prominence to established broadcasters, warning the move risks “facilitating censorship”.
In a pointed intervention, the US government said the proposals to boost traditional media outlets in social media algorithms could “establish a template that authoritarian regimes could invoke to justify more control over online content”.
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Germany is reeling from the biggest far-right victory in a state election since the Nazi period after voters in Saxony-Anhalt in the former communist east gave the anti-immigration, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party a thumping first-place finish of 44%, just short of an absolute majority.
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The Lake Chad Basin: Restoring regional security cooperation
28
September 2026 — 15:00 TO 16:00 BST
Anonymous (not verified)
Online
Why regional cooperation matters in addressing the convergence of insurgency, displacement, and climate stress.
Why regional cooperation matters in addressing the convergence of insurgency, displacement, and climate stress.
The Lake Chad Basin faces the mutually reinforcing pressure of insurgent violence, displacement and climate stress. These pressures have tested cooperation between the countries affected: Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Regional political tensions have weakened cross-border counterterrorism cooperation, creating greater operational space for Boko Haram and ISWAP. Recent United States military cooperation with Nigeria adds context to the debate over security, local dynamics and multilateral peacebuilding.
This event discusses:
How have political frictions affected multilateral cooperation in the Lake Chad Basin?
What does rising insurgent sophistication mean for regional security?
How has United States military cooperation with Nigeria affected local dynamics?
What is the future of intergovernmental cooperation after targeted strikes?
Where do current counter-insurgency approaches fall short?
Can climate adaptation become a pillar of peacebuilding in the Lake Chad Basin?
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In less than two weeks, the high-energy laser weapon system has taken down 11 drones, coinciding with a 75% drop in drones probing the border, military officials told CBS News.
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About 95% of restaurant menus feature spicy food. The fastest growth is in smoky, tangy, sweet-spicy profiles, not Scoville-scale escalation.The post Americans redefine tastes with spice, not heat appeared first on Food Drink Life.
Spotlight Delaware reporter Maggie Reynolds recently spoke with Doug Conaway and Jacki Slonin, who are seeking the Republican nomination for House District 41 in Delaware in the Sept. 15, 2026, primary election. Their opponent, John Atkins, declined to be interviewed without conditions.
The seat is held by Republican incumbent Rich Collins, who is retiring after 12 years of service in the House of Representatives.
Conaway is a retired Army veteran who now runs a construction company, while Slonin is a marketing professional and local advocate. Atkins is a former state representative, who has a checkered legal past but says he has now found a new life.
The winner will face Democrat Ryan Stuckey in the November general election.
Readers can find condensed versions of the candidates’ answers below, while the accompanying podcasts feature unedited excerpts from our conversations.
Doug Conaway
Can you introduce yourself?
I was originally born in Oklahoma, but I grew up in Laurel, Delaware.
I graduated from Epworth Christian School, went to Delaware Technical and Community College, and then from there I joined the U.S. Army and spent a total of 27 years in the armed services. After my first tour of the army, I spent about five years working with the New Castle County Police, transferred to the Delaware State Police, where I worked at Troop 2 up in New Castle County for two years.
And then after 9/11, I decided to depart from the state police and go back into the Army full-time, where I completed a total of 27 years of military service. And currently I own my own business, Douglas Builders, and we’re a small building company.
To start, can you give some background about what led you to join the race?
Well, as I stated, I had 20 some years in the military. So when I left Delaware, and when I returned, I noticed the only thing that changed was the population and the growth.
We didn’t do anything to increase the infrastructure for roads, increase medical facilities, dental facilities, optometrists, all the medical necessities that should be happening with growth.
So I believe my military experience will help me to look not only at where we’re at currently, but 20 years down the road and make sure that we’re developing and growing in the right way.
How would you approach growth and development in the Millsboro area?
The biggest concern I would look at is with our roads. We’ve always looked at the income Sussex County generates and what goes forward to the state, and we don’t think we get our fair share. I would agree.
But what we really need to be looking at is evacuation routes. If we look at the number of people who are down visiting our beaches on a summer day, and we look at the number of people traveling to our beaches, and we look at the number of people that live here.
If we have a real emergency, unfortunately, there will be some lives lost because we don’t have proper evacuation routes or proper road structure to get those people out. That just doesn’t affect the 41st or Sussex County. That affects people up north that are visiting our beaches down here.
If you look at our emergency routes, we have two lane highways which are Route 1, 13 and 113. Everything leading to that is a single-lane road. There is nowhere near enough capacity to allow people to evacuate in a timely manner, and it’s a safety issue. And that’s something that the state needs to do, is ensure that us citizens are provided a safe environment, and I don’t think we’re doing that.
Another theme in the General Assembly in recent years has been the local control debate, which has manifested in the offshore wind project debate and then Senate Bill 23 this year. What are your thoughts on local control, and how would you approach a topic like SB 23 if elected?
Well, I think local control is very important. The people spoke and the state’s not listening. That’s what’s important. They don’t want offshore windmills, and we need to look at other electrical or power sources, such as small modular nuclear energy that is reliable.
Nuclear has a lifespan of 60 years versus 20 years for offshore wind. Then at the end of that wing turbine lifespan, that stuff just gets put somewhere because it’s not biodegradable.
So if we’re really talking green energy, I don’t think wind is the way of the future. Small modular nuclear, which has been on our Navy submarines and Navy warships for years with sailors sleeping next to it, is where we need to start looking.
You mentioned infrastructure and roads as primary concerns in your campaign. Are there any additional issues you would cite as most pressing to your district?
Well, taxes are always important to everybody throughout the state. We need to ensure that we’re not raising taxes. People are stressed. They’re hurting. They’re hurting with the cost of living, and they’re hurting with the price of gas.
All that needs to be thought out when we’re looking into raising taxes, and we don’t need to raise taxes.
I also think education is very important. We need to ensure that as we build medical facilities here, that we’re doing the right thing. For instance, if we build medical facilities, and we won’t have people within Sussex County to fill those positions, that means we have to bring more people in from outside of the county.
We need more houses. We’ve got more cars on the road. It doesn’t make sense. So our schools, whether it be Sussex Tech or whatever school it is, needs to look at how do we grow medical jobs and jobs altogether. But medical field would be great so that when our kids graduate school here, they have a job to go into within our community, and we don’t have to look for housing.
There’s also a sizable agricultural population in the 41st. What would be your approach to representing the farming community in Dover?
Absolutely. Agriculture is very important. My wife’s family’s been growing on the same piece of land for more than 120 years.
Delmarva, and Delaware as part of that, has a large chicken industry, and part of that chicken industry is making sure that we’re growing corn, wheat, soybeans to feed those chickens so that we can produce the millions of pounds of chickens that leave Delmarva.
So yes, it is very important. But what we also need to do what we can to preserve that land to keep developers from grabbing it. We need to look into farmland preservation and getting farmers a fair amount of money for their land so that we can preserve it and take it out of the developer’s hands.
You’re in a rather crowded primary race and one that’s been getting a lot of attention. Does that surprise you? What is your reaction to the tenor of the race in your district?
Well, I think it’s everybody’s got an opportunity to run. There’s nothing that says anybody can’t run.
I think what we’re seeing is in the beginning, my name was not as prominent as some other names out there, and what we’re seeing is our campaign is growing support every day. I believe we are seeing that everywhere we go.
And I think we have a really good chance at taking Delaware back and going to represent Delaware from our campaign.
Jacki Slonin
To start, can you talk about your background and what led you to join the race?
I was born and raised here, so I grew up in Selbyville. Attended Indian River School District, so went through elementary, middle school, and even high school here.
And as far as that goes being educated here, I also went to community college at Del Tech and received my associate degree in criminal justice.
Like many, I didn’t get politically involved until something happened to spark it. For me, it was definitely 9/11 and that’s where I started paying a little bit more attention at my age to things that were kind of going on around me and on a federal level as well.
And so I got a little bit involved on the advocating side. A couple of years ago, I’m not sure exactly how many years ago, but when Regulation 225 was kind of going around through the schools, I got a little bit more involved on a local level with that.It kind of opened the door for me.
I’ve thought about running for office for many years but because I do take care of my mom, I needed to make sure that I had her in a better place prior to putting my foot into the race. So it took me about two years to kind of get her kind of settled in and put things in place, and that’s when Rich Collins announced he was not going to seek re-election.
You mentioned you have a degree in criminal justice. What’s your career background? Are you still working in marketing?
I was 26 when I started college, so let’s just say I thought about it for quite a long time. There were other things that I was interested in but I thought law enforcement was probably where I was best suited. I did have a personal goal to either work for the FBI or the DEA, but I needed to put my foot in basically at a steppingstone.
Unfortunately for me, I was just not able to get a foot in the door. So for about four and a half years, I applied for different positions in different things, probation and parole, things of those nature. And even with superb testing, I was not able to get an interview. So just like anybody in life, when something happens, you have to kind of pivot.
So that’s what I did. I actually wound up working for almost two decades in a career in the marketing field. Obviously has nothing to do with criminal justice, but that’s just where it took me, and it was something I fell into. Didn’t have a background in it, didn’t have a degree in it, but found out that I was actually pretty good at it.
So again, that career lasted me two decades.
For me, it’s not about politics, it’s about people. So everything I did in my marketing career is really surrounded around what I would be doing, with listening, communicating, giving solutions — the type of things I’d need in this elected position.
You touched on your prior involvement with the Indian River School District and some other advocacy interests. What do you see as the most pressing issues to your district, or what are you most focused on in the campaign?
When I’m out talking to people, their main concerns seem to all be the same: the cost of living, which kind of morph into a couple of different areas.
They talk about energy costs and the cost or access to healthcare.
And of course all of those things can also morph into the growth that we’ve had here because that plays a huge role, and that health access, being able to get into a doctor on a regular basis or when you need to, not months down the road.
We as taxpayers pay a lot of money, but we’re not seeing that return of investment of the education of our kids. The percentages of what they’re proficient in definitely need to improve.
But we also need to encourage and maybe incentivize our teachers and people who work in the schools. They’re tired too. They have to go through a lot of things, a lot more things than even when I was in school. A lot of state mandates come their way that either are not being funded 100%, or are things that they’re being sent in different directions that they’re having to go.
And the focus really needs to be on letting those people educate kids and not having to worry about some of this backside stuff.
I’ve been reached out by a few people about our seniors because apparently nobody else is talking about these things on the Republican side.
Our population is a large portion of people over the age of 65. And quite honestly, I’m going to be there one day. God willing, we’re all going to be there one day. So it behooves us to pay attention, making sure that things aren’t happening within these facilities of people being neglected or abused.
Making sure that the people that are taking care of elderly and our most vulnerable are actually certified to do so, which is hugely important. Background checks, things of those nature. I mean, all of those things across the board when we’re talking about our most vulnerable is hugely important to me.
Can you talk more about what your approach would be to the development debate given all of the growth in your district?
I will start off by saying that I’m not against growth.
I think we need growth. Unfortunately, we haven’t had smart growth, which is the problem.
The damage is kind of done. So we can’t turn the clock back. There’s just no way that’s gonna happen. But we can be smarter.
I wanna stay here. Unfortunately, there are people who have been here their whole life who are being pushed out. They can’t afford to live here anymore. The people moving in here saying the taxes are lower — of course, they’re lower from where they’re coming from.
We have people on fixed incomes, so they are definitely being pushed out. The things that are being built are not affordable.
So we first need to look at building up the infrastructure prior to allowing things to come in, whether it’s on a town-level or Sussex County-level, to make sure that those things are put in place and what’s being put there makes sense for the space that they’re putting it.
And I understand builders want to make money, but we need people who are willing to build more for workforce housing for people who live here.
But, again, that’s also on a builder side. They have to be willing to do those things, and if they’re not going to make money off of that, then we’re not going to see that happening. But it’s definitely not affordable when homes are over $300,000 for people that live here.
This leads into another question about the local control debate that has popped up over the past couple of years with the offshore wind project and most recently Senate Bill 23 and local housing and zoning mandates. What would your approach be to the SB 23 local control versus state authority topic?
On a personal level, local control is something I would stand up for 10 times out of 10.
We hope on a deeper level that our elected officials listen to the people who live here.
But at the end, they’re also limited as well … You’ve probably have seen quite a few things, from different people saying, “We need to keep our farmland.”
Sure we do, but we also can’t stop people from selling land if they don’t want to farm.
So there is a fine balance there with that. And that goes back to zoning and these agencies, as well as being proactive, knowing what our community wants, making sure that they are zoned properly and not rezoning them, and then trying to fight the battle later.
I’ll say this every day of the week, we need to be more proactive. It’s a must because you can’t just think three years down the road. You have to think further out.
You are running in a pretty crowded primary field right now. I’ve seen quite a bit of discourse online about candidates in the race seeking endorsements from other elected officials or people in other leadership roles in Sussex County. I’ve also seen posts from you about your approach to not seeking endorsements.
I’m not a career politician and nor do I plan on being one.
So I want to get in, if elected, and do what’s right for the people who live here, including myself because I’m one of them. And if they think I’m doing a good job, they can reelect me. It’s not something that I plan on staying until I’m 80 years old. I wanna get in. I wanna do the best that I can for my community, and I wanna pass it along to the next person.
So with not being a career politician, I don’t wanna be tied to anybody except for the people that I’m working for. And so when I say I’m not seeking out asking for endorsements, that does not mean, and I’ve been very clear about that. It does not mean that I am not willing to sit down and talk with people.
If somebody is supporting me and say they want to do an endorsement on their own, that’s their story to tell. They can do whatever they like.
I just wanna make that stance very clear that I’m not in anybody’s back pocket. I’m here to work for the people of my community, and to do this together.
It’s not about my personal opinions or what I think. It’s about what’s best for the community as a whole.
How would you characterize what your strategy is for getting your message out and connecting with voters in the district?
So I’m boots on the ground. I’m talking to people. For me, it’s about getting in front of as many potential voters in my district that I possibly can.
I will say, I don’t really like the word strategy because I feel like it’s some kind of sneaky plan to do something. There is no strategy. It’s just, ‘Here I am; this is who I am; get to know me and make your informed decision.’ So that’s what I’m doing.
So I’m sharing information whether it be on social media, in person. I’ve had multiple meet and greets.
John Atkins
John Atkins is another Republican seeking office in the 41st district. Atkins declined to do a primary election interview with Spotlight Delaware unless we agreed not to mention Atkins’ past in the interview, which he said people do not care about anymore. Spotlight Delaware does not grant interviews with preconditions to avoid a specific topic.
Atkins, of Millsboro, is the owner of Atkins & Sons Materials, a landscaping supply store.
He served as a state representative for the 41st District from 2003 to 2014. Much of his campaign messaging has focused on that legislative experience and the ability to hit the ground running, if elected.
While in office in 2007, Atkins was stopped by police for drunk driving and subsequently arrested after a domestic dispute with his wife that same night.
Following those incidents, the House Ethics Committee investigated Atkins’ behavior and voted to censure him from using his legislative ID or serving on legislative committees. He resigned from the House after the censure. In 2008, Atkins switched parties and won the 41st District as a Democrat.
He served two more terms as a Democrat until he was defeated by the district’s current representative, Rich Collins, in 2014. In 2014, Atkins was issued a restraining order by the Delaware Family Court to stay away from his estranged wife and sons after his wife told the court she feared his “temper and erratic behavior.”
In 2016, he was charged with offensive touching and criminal mischief following a physical altercation with a girlfriend. Those charges were later dropped due to insufficient evidence. Finally, in 2018, Atkins was charged with strangulation and assault of another girlfriend and violating a no-contact order against her.
As a result of that most recent arrest, he was sentenced to 22 days in prison, a year of probation, and a requirement to undergo substance and mental health treatment evaluations.
Atkins agreed to do an interview with Spotlight Delaware in December 2025. When asked about his criminal record in that conversation, Atkins said his past is almost a decade behind him now, which has given him time to mature and apologize to former constituents.
“Circumstances change,” he said at the time. “I was in a very unsettling, bad relationship. That’s been over with for years, and I’m on the right path.”
Sussex County GOP leaders have not publicly commented on Atkins run for office, though some party leaders told Spotlight Delaware in late 2025 they called a meeting with Atkins to discuss his past and the possibility of him seeking office again.
When asked about Atkins candidacy in December 2025, then Sussex Republican Party Chair Dan Willis declined to comment on Atkins but did sing the praises of Doug Conaway. Retiring Rep. Rich Collins, whom Atkins, Conaway, and Slonin are vying to replace, has also publicly endorsed Conaway.
In a campaign promotion video, Atkins cited protecting Second Amendment rights, preventing a Democratic supermajority, and keeping who he called men, seemingly referring to transgender women, out of girls’ bathrooms and sports. He also said he would prioritize preserving farmland over more development.
Spotlight Delaware reporter Maggie Reynolds recently spoke with Matt Bucher, who is seeking the Republican nomination for House District 33 in Delaware in the Sept. 15, 2026, primary election. His opponent, Morgan Hudson, declined to be interviewed.
The seat is held by Republican incumbent Charles Postles, who is retiring after a decade of service in the House of Representatives.
Bucher is a former Milford school board member and Republican Party district chair, while Hudson is involved with her family’s construction cleaning business. She is also board president of the Frederica Senior Center.
Readers can find condensed versions of the candidates’ answers below, while the accompanying podcasts feature unedited excerpts from our conversations.
Matt Bucher
Can you give me some background information about yourself and what led you to join the race?
So I am a commercial estimator for a large scale institutional floor covering company. We do hospitals, government buildings, schools, churches, retail stores, car dealerships, that type of thing.
I’m in charge of bidding the jobs, and they can be hundreds or even millions of dollars worth of contracts. So I’m in charge of really profit and loss, trying to make a job work for the most competitive price.
Twenty years ago, I also started volunteering in the Milford School District. My son went through the Milford school district. He is a senior at Dartmouth College now.
So I agreed to do that, and I ran a very serious campaign. I was already involved in Republican politics by then and was chair of the 33rd District Republican Committee, which I had for three and a half terms. I worked very closely with Charles Postles, who is the 33rd District representative who is retiring.
But as far as the school board goes, it was very interesting. I wasn’t particularly well-known or popular, but I led with my values and ran a conventional campaign. I took it very seriously and got a lot of support and won overwhelmingly.
So during my tenure on the school board, Milford is in a very, very good position, and it was financially all along, but we’ve been able to cut tax rates repeatedly for the last four or five years and at the same time our reserves are higher than they’ve ever been.
I think it’s very unlikely in the near future, even the far future barring a series of disasters, that Milford will need to go out for an operating referendum the way you see other neighboring school districts struggle with sometimes. Capital budgets and capital construction is different.
I also had found out that Milford, unlike many of our neighboring districts, did not have an educational foundation, or an academic charitable foundation.
So I decided, well, if it’s gonna get done, I’m gonna have to do it. So I got with the IRS and a corporate agent, and over a few month period, I founded and financed the startup of the Buccaneer Educational Foundation, a charitable educational academic foundation that provides classroom-sized grants for teachers that want a unique educational experience or some type of field trip with an academic basis.
So it’s been a great success. I think of my tenure on the school board, something that I didn’t even have to be on the school board to do is the thing I’m really most proud of and I will be in that as long as I’m alive.
Why did you decide to run for 33rd District State Representative?
So as I mentioned earlier, from 2019 to 2025, I was the chairman of the Republican Party for the 33rd District. What’s interesting about the 33rd District is it is the closest in terms of party registration between Republicans and Democrats of any of the 41 districts in the state.
When I first got in there, out of 20,000 registered voters in the district, plus or minus, there were 98 more Ds than Rs.
So we held registration drives. We had volunteers give out literature in the community. We invited people to the meetings. We upped our presence at events. And we slowly but surely turned a major Democrat advantage into a Republican advantage.
And today, it hovers around 340 to 370 more Rs than Ds in the 33rd. It’s the very definition of a swing district in terms of registration.
And eventually the House minority leadership asked me to run for the House seat, and I said, “Absolutely.”
Has Representative Postlesformally endorsed you or it was more a discussion about you running?
He has not and he will not endorse anyone.
I had a conversation with him a long time ago, and he said when he ran, he was too in a primary situation and he ran his campaign. And he felt that the strongest candidate will win out. The one that works the hardest, the one that has the most presence, the one who is most suited for this district would win organically.
I certainly respect that.
You’ve talked a lot about your background with the Milford School Board and an educational focus in some legislation you have advocated for in the past. Do you see that being your primary legislative focus if elected?
Definitely one of them. I would say that if I had to distill down my overriding philosophy in all phases of Delaware’s societal fabric — education, infrastructure, business, taxes, healthcare, any of those things — it’s local authority and local control.
I’m sure you’ve heard coming from some quarters that Delaware has, despite the results that we have, one of the per capita highest spending per child, which is true. But a lot of that comes from legislative and executive mandates over the years. There’s no flexibility in funding.
There’s no flexibility in what a district can spend money on. Less than 1% is truly discretionary spending. So a lot of times we are spending on things that we don’t really need or don’t really need in the quantity that we’ve got them.
Every time a mandate is enacted via legislation, you need somebody to comply with it.
You have administration in some of these industries doing nothing but complying with government regulations. I think that if a mandate via legislation or a fiat from one of the alphabet agencies is important enough to make law, then it ought to be important enough to fund the compliance with it as well.
And if it’s not, why then are we doing the legislation?
Continuing on the topics of education and school funding, do you have thoughts on the Public Education Funding Commission formula?
Generally I’m for it because we need to try something new. I would’ve preferred it to be more streamlined, but I understand the constraints that the committees were under, and I know many of the individuals on the committees, and they actually did a fabulous job.
Change comes hard, especially change of the kind of consequential nature we’re talking about.
I am cautiously optimistic about the introduction of that framework, and I hope for our kids’ sake and our local school’s sake that it helps some of the districts where we’ve got children that need extra support.
So public schools must take everybody. If a child presents themself at the schoolhouse door, we are to educate. And that is as it should be.
I’ve always been a fan of not only public schools, but private schools, parochial schools, religious schools, home schools, and charter schools, which are, of course, public schools.
We need all of the above. We need all the experimentation we can get. Public schools are in a unique situation that they must take everybody, and they do take the more challenging student.
But you have kids that need extra supports. You have kids that have IEPs or 504s, that have issues that we are legally and morally bound as a society to mitigate any way we can. Better to do it now than have to do it later.
I believe that, in general, conservatives should not turn away from public education and should in fact turn toward them. That’s one reason I ran for school board, to bring our perspective into the public schools, as far as monetary issues, traditional curriculum, that type of thing.
Outside of education, what would you identify as the most pressing issues to the 33rd District?
I work with individuals in organizations like the Delaware Volunteer Firefighters Association and their legislative priorities would be mine. Even simple things like the equipment stipend is years out of date. It’s like $7,500 or so, and a piece of equipment that they might need would be $25,000.
There needs to be more money for training for our volunteer firefighters. I would like to work someday toward dedicated funding for our local fire companies. I think it’s an interesting system where firefighters and their lobbying associations have to beg each year to the legislature for the things that everybody knows they need.
And are there any other priorities you’d point to as the most pressing issues to the district?
So I’m knocking on doors. And I’ve been doing that for like two and a half months now. And the No. 1 issue, believe it or not, is speeding. So we don’t have enough traffic enforcement on some of these secondary roads.
We don’t have things like bus turnarounds in developments. Speed cameras or the sensors, that type of thing. We’ve got to get control of the traffic situation.
And they’re concerned about growth.
That’s largely a county thing. But I’ll be working closely with the county. I have a relationship with the local county commissioners and will support whatever route they go as far as enforcing the growth zone, that type of thing.
Are you in favor of more growth in your district?
No. I know what’s coming. Eastern Sussex is already there. The Smyrna-Middletown area is already there. They are coming. We have to make sure we, being the county working with the legislature, working with our municipalities that we insist on the infrastructure before the development.
That’s the big trap that Eastern Sussex has fallen into. We don’t want that to happen to Southern Kent.
And I don’t know what the solution is to that. There are some things that they’re working on. But we have to be responsive on a local level. Remember, a state representative is not a leader. He is a servant. And I’m running to serve the people for a time, and then it’ll be somebody else.
There’s a pretty sizable farming population in the 33rd. Do you have a background in agriculture? And what would your approach be to representing farming interests in your district in Dover?
Peripherally. I’ve been involved in farming, but I’ve never been a farmer.
So I am a member of the Farm Bureau, and I’ve been a volunteer for several years for the Delaware Agricultural Museum, which endeavors to protect our agricultural heritage. And I do work with farmers on and talk to them about legislative issues. I have good friends that are in the leadership at the Farm Bureau.
I think the basic thing that I would say this for every sector is you have to listen to their concerns, and their concerns are private property rights. Their concerns are assessments. Their concerns are prices. Their concerns are taxes.
And I will continue to be an advocate for helping them with any individual concerns they’ve got.
You’ve mentioned that the 33rd district has a close margin of Democratic and Republican voters. What is your campaign approach given that it’s a pretty close district?
Well, so fortunately, which has borne itself out in the numbers over the past few elections, the independent or unaffiliated vote pretty strongly is basically conservative,. Not in all things, but in most things.
This district has a rural character. I mean, there’s a few communities, but outside of Milford, I’d say the communities like Magnolia and Frederica and Bowers are rural, small-town communities. They have very, very conservative values on a macro-sense.
And you’ll see it on my literature. It says, “This is a very pro-God, pro-family, and pro-constitution area,” and I hope it always remains so. I want to preserve our rural character, stand up for the values that the members of the 33rd believe, and make sure that we have a vibrant community that is desirable for their children and grandchildren to live in and stay here.
Morgan Hudson
Morgan Hudson is another Republican candidate seeking office in the 33rd district. Hudson told Spotlight Delaware she would not be able to make time for an interview before the primary election due to obligations caring for her newborn baby and other relatives.
According to her campaign website, Hudson was born and raised in the Milford area and works as a part of her family’s construction cleaning business.
Her website also states that she has managed rental properties for the past 15 years and is currently serving on the Kent County Board of Adjustments. Hudson has run for office twice in the past. In 2016 she ran for the same state representative seat she is currently seeking and was defeated by Charles Postles, who has served as the district’s representative until his retirement this fall. She also unsuccessfully sought a seat on the Kent County Levy Court in 2022.
Hudson’s website lists her campaign priorities as including directing resources to small businesses, preserving family farms, supporting public safety and first responders, and cutting the wait time for access to healthcare providers.
Hudson is also president of the board of the Frederica Senior Center. She often speaks about wanting to support the senior citizen community in her district and promotes the initiatives at the senior center on her Facebook page. In an email to Spotlight Delaware when she first filed for office in December 2025, Hudson wrote that she is running to “protect our family farms, small businesses, and the next generation.”
She also wrote, “When we lift up small businesses and farms, our local economy grows, jobs stay here, and our district remains the place we’re proud to call home.”
A top Iranian official says Tehran will impose an "exclusion zone" outside the Strait of Hormuz as it seeks to tighten its chokehold on tanker traffic.
The average price of regular gas was $4.15 a gallon on Labor Day, well above the Labor Day weekend record of $3.82 from 2012, and diesel was at a new all-time record of $5.90.
Cooler evenings call for dinners that bring plenty of warmth without turning cooking into a project. These 15 recipes cover soups, pot roast, chicken and rice, chili, salmon, noodles, and fast skillet meals.The post 15 fall comfort dinners for nights…
A new article about AI in The Economist argues that "Initial effects of the technology on employment look positive."
Perhaps AI will eventually make many humans unemployable — but there is no sign of it yet. On September 4th the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that the American economy added 162,000 jobs in August, far above expectations. The unemployment rate is just 4.1%, lower than in almost 90% of months over the past half-century. Young workers, often cast as AI's first victims, are holding up remarkably well: the gap between unemployment among 20-24-year-olds and the overall rate is close to a multi-decade low.
Some companies and workers are being severely disrupted by AI. Hiring in professional and business services is running about 10% below the average in 2015-19. Tech giants like Microsoft and Meta are trimming headcounts as they reorganise their businesses around the technology. Smaller firms such as Block, the owner of Square and Cash App, and Intuit, the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, are replacing people with bots. American companies have announced some 16,000 AI-related job cuts a month on average so far this year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employment consultancy.
But AI-related lay-offs gets lost in the churning jobs market where employers shed roughly 1.7m workers in a typical month. And the evidence so far is that AI is already creating a lot of jobs to replace those it has destroyed. The vast sums pouring into data centres and power generation have set off a race for construction and infrastructure workers. AI startups are hiring like there is no tomorrow. Incumbents racing to keep up are creating new AI roles. And by making some workers more productive, AI may be increasing demand for their services.
Add it all up, and The Economist estimates that AI has so far created around 1m new jobs in America. That easily exceeds the roughly 200,000 lay-offs attributed to AI since mid-2023, and appears more than enough to offset weaker hiring in many back-office roles.
Their article acknowledges that since January 2023 employment has fallen roughly 10% for customer-service workers and 15% for administrative assistants. But when The Economist looked at professions "closest to the AI boom" — engineers, software developers, mathematicians and data scientists — they found that since 2022 they've added roughly 730,000 jobs above trend. They see AI as creating new white-collar jobs for everyone from model and deployment engineers to new data annotators.
The chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute agrees, estimating that roughly 1% of professional jobs are now "AI jobs" — about 1 million positions in the U.S. — while in computer occupations and life sciences it's between 4% and 5%. (Data-center construction spending also increased 60% in one year, according to Census Bureau data, creating jobs for electricians, HVAC specialists, grid engineers, and machine technicians.) And "Indeed finds that installation and maintenance jobs at data centres advertise wages about 40% higher than comparable work elsewhere."
These 17 hearty casseroles bring the kind of substantial, old-school dinners worth saving, from cheesy chicken and baked pasta to beef, potatoes, beans, and layered family-size bakes.The post 17 hearty casseroles that made my grandpa ask for the recipe to…
UK house prices have fallen for the first time in almost three years, as prospective buyers were squeezed by higher mortgage rates, geopolitical uncertainty and stretched affordability.
Prices have dropped by 0.4% compared with a year ago, the first year-on-year decrease since November 2023, according to the lender Lloyds. That came in below expectations of a 0.2% annual rise, according to a poll of economists by Reuters.
Good morning. A far-right leader who has won an important state election in Germany has thanked Elon Musk for his support, as voices in Europe warn the result is a serious moment for the continent. No far-right party has led or formed a government in Germany since the defeat of nazism at the end of the second world war.
Ulrich Siegmund, the Alternative für Deutschland’s lead candidate, thanked Musk on X after the tech billionaire said “Well done!” in German to the AfD co-founder Alice Weidel. The populist, far-right, anti-immigration party won the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Will the AfD be able to form a state government? Despite its resounding victory, the party fell just short of a majority. It was seeking an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called “firewall” of the mainstream parties, which refuse to work with it. The final results showed the AfD falling three seats short, with 39 lawmakers in an 83-member legislature.
What has been the reaction in Washington and Moscow? Donald Trump posted a screenshot of the election projection without comment on his Truth Social site. The Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev took a screengrab of Trump’s post and praised a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD”. The AfD is pro-Kremlin, urging a stop to support for Ukraine and pushing for Ukrainians in Germany to no longer receive refugee status.
Who else has been saying Trump’s war may not achieve its aims? The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said on Sunday morning Washington might not be able to reach an agreement with Tehran that would prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. “We are strangling their economy to try to bring either a change in policy from the existing regime or a new regime,” he said.
Thousands of mourners have gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladić, a Serbian general convicted of orchestrating the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war, and whose hero’s return home has raised international alarm.
Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role during the Balkans genocide in the 1990s, Mladić died in prison in late August aged 84 while serving a life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Jaguar Land Rover has announced thousands of job cuts in a “body blow for workers” as it grapples with tough trading conditions, Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack.
Britain’s largest carmaker, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, confirmed the anticipated cuts on Monday, saying it wants to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 over two years, as part of an effort to save £1.7bn.
DeRidder, Louisiana — Former DeRidder Mayor Misty Roberts has completed her 90-day jail sentence after being convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old boy while she was still in office.
Roberts, 44, was convicted in March of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and indecent behavior with a juvenile after a jury found she had sex with the teenager at a 2024 house party. She had faced up to 17 years in prison, though state law did not require a minimum sentence.
Judge Kent Savoie sentenced Roberts in June to 90 days in jail, a $5,000 fine and suspended prison terms. She must also register as a sex offender, submit to drug screenings and undergo psychological treatment.
The sentence drew criticism, particularly after KPLC reported that more than 30 cases Savoie used as comparisons had all ended in plea agreements rather than jury convictions. Prosecutors later asked him to impose a harsher sentence.
Savoie rejected that request on Aug. 31, while acknowledging he had made a mistake in how he evaluated those earlier cases. He said the error did not justify increasing Roberts’ punishment after sentencing.
Roberts resigned as mayor shortly before her 2024 arrest. Her conviction and sex-offender registration remain in place following her release.
Uptick in US union membership coincides with high public approval ratings of unions
After years of decline, union membership in the US increased by 411,000 members in 2025, the largest increase since 2008, according to a new report.
The report makes clear the impact that “right to work” laws can have on union membership: most gains were concentrated in states that protect collective bargaining.
Labor experts stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been with actions since last Labor Day that have hurt unions
Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to champion US workers. Shortly before Labor Day last year, he said: “Every policy of the Trump administration is designed to lift up the American worker and “promote great-paying blue-collar jobs”. But in the year since last Labor Day, Trump has taken many actions that have hurt US workers and unions, with some labor experts saying they’ve been stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been.
HHS releases report linking ‘gender ideology’ to political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health.
It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care. Dozens of hospitals stopped offering gender-affirming care after the Trump administration began investigating them for offering the standard of care.
Mainstream politicians around Europe have expressed alarm after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) swept to a historic state election victory in Germany, while nationalist figures cheered the result as a mandate for change.
While falling just short of an absolute majority, the AfD surged into first place in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on Sunday, exit polls showed, putting the far right within reach of power at the state level for the first time since the second world war.
Ryan Bridge, who co-founded Raise the Colours, to appear in court on charges including racially aggravated harassment
The leader of a group responsible for raising union jack and St George’s flags across England has been charged with 14 offences, including racially aggravated harassment, threatening behaviour and assault.
Ryan Bridge, 45, of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, co-founded Raise the Colours, which describes itself as a “grassroots movement for unity and patriotism”.
Seven counts of using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Three counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of, or provoke, unlawful violence.
Two counts of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress.
One count of racially aggravated fear of violence.
Judge admits he made mistake in sentencing Misty Roberts, who faced up to 17 years in prison after conviction
The former Louisiana mayor Misty Roberts has completed the 90-day jail sentence she received for raping a 16-year-old boy while still in elected office and been released from custody, according to state corrections records.
The 44-year-old finished her jail term on Monday, the Labor Day holiday in the US, one week after the state judge who presided over her case rejected a request from prosecutors to force her to serve a harsher sentence.
Newscaster says rare but treatable condition polycythaemia vera left her feeling like she ‘had her batteries taken out’
The BBC News presenter Maryam Moshiri has been diagnosed with a rare form of incurable blood cancer, she has revealed.
Doctors told the broadcaster last November she had polycythaemia vera (PV), which cannot be cured but is treatable. The condition, which affects about 8,000 people in the UK, is associated with an increased risk of the blood clots that can cause a stroke, heart attack or deep vein thrombosis.
US-owned dating app allegedly allowed ad firms access to private information in breach of UK law
Grindr will pay £26m to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of users in the UK who allege that the US dating app shared highly sensitive personal information, including in some cases their HIV status, with advertising companies.
The settlement brings to an end a two-year legal battle, after the UK law firm Austen Hays filed a claim at the high court of England and Wales in April 2024 on behalf of Grindr users alleging violations of UK privacy laws during a period up to early 2020.
Clancy’s case became a referendum on mothers, healthcare, and the status of women
Most family annihilators are men. It’s a grim fact that such incidents are common enough to have a discernible pattern. The massacre is carried out by a husband and father, often one who is on the verge of bankruptcy or divorce; typically, it forms the finale of a long reign of domestic violence terror.
About half the time, the perpetrator kills himself after slaughtering his family. Gun use is common – a large number of what are termed “mass shootings” in the United States are in fact family annihilation killings, in which a man turns his weapon on his family members. Other times, the killer uses knives, or fires.
People outside Turning Point USA’s headquarters commemorate the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 20, 2025, in Phoenix, Ariz.Photo: Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images
Charlie Kirk will live forever — at least online.
In the year since he was gunned down at an event at Utah Valley University, the Turning Point USA founder has gone from a man cut down in his prime to a recurring internet meme, complete with an AI-generated song, “We Are Charlie Kirk,” which hit No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 U.S. ranking. Audio of his killing became a TikTok sound for girlie outfit transformation videos; he’s been inserted into movies like “Avatar” and “The Odyssey”; he’s been AI’d into Studio Ghibli-style art, the final scene of “The Sopranos,” and the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” Even the moment of his death has gotten the meme treatment, with parodies depicting him with Jeffrey Epstein and Benjamin Netanyahu.
The ridicule comes as a product of the American right’s insistence that Kirk’s violent death be taken seriously. They fought back hard against the meme-making and serious critique alike, weaponizing the conservative college-whisperer’s death to broadly crack down on free speech.
President Trump and his allies almost immediately blamed Democrats and “the radical left,” without evidence, for Kirk’s assassination. At the Department of Defense, Secretary Pete Hegseth promised to investigate whether members of the armed forces were inadequately mournful and terminate them. The State Department revoked visas of noncitizens who “celebrated” Kirk’s death. Local cops got in on the civil rights-bashing fun, too: A Tennessee man was arrested for posting a meme in the wake of Kirk’s death, amid a wave of firings in the state on similarly unstable grounds.
No sector of society was untouched by the rising tides of brain-dead McCarthyism: Dozens of educators were terminated for having their say about the killing; an MSNBC political analyst as well as a Washington Post columnist were fired (an arbitrator has since ordered the latter be rehired); workers at Office Depot, the major airlines, and a prominent law firm were axed; ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel for his on-air remarks.
Kirk’s legacy has also been consecrated in the public square. An artist plans to unveil a busted statue of the TPUSA founder in New York City’s Times Square on the anniversary of his death. His legacy of ire for basically any oppressed group you can name has been enshrined by changing the names of roads to “Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway” in Naples, Florida, and outside Nashville — displacing Vietnam Veterans Boulevard — and “Charlie Kirk Way” in the red part of California. As I was writing this, a pickup truck with a sticker that reads “In Loving Memory of Charlie Kirk” passed me on the highway outside Chappaqua, New York.
All of these efforts have failed spectacularly. One year after Kirk’s killing, the conservative movement has descended into in-fighting, and although Kirk’s wife, Erika, took the reins at Turning Point, there is no heir apparent to energizing young conservatives (although the antisemitic streamer Nick Fuentes would like to throw his hat in the ring). Rifts have quite publicly opened between some of the movement’s most recognizable figures — Ben Shapiro, Candice Owens, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson among them.
Many of Kirk’s disciples have descended into the realm of conspiracy theory, variously blaming Israel, the left, or even Erika for his demise instead of Tyler Robinson, the 23-year-old suspect who will soon stand trial for his killing. Owens, who by all appearances actually was close friends with Kirk, has actively stoked these flames of division, pushing the conspiracy theory that Israel had him killed while waging open war on his widow.
MAGA conservatives expected Kirk’s death to be a kind of Reichstag fire that would galvanize and consolidate the right to move against the supposed threat of an organized — and politically violent — left. But to stick with Germany, Kirk is no Horst Wessel, and by insisting on total deference to the notion that the “Change My Mind” guy was a sainted national hero, they’ve given up the game entirely and opened themselves up to be relentlessly mocked.
When you center your political movement on cruelty and your online presence on dunking on the most vulnerable, your critics will respond by delighting in your misfortunes.
Conservatives routinely post their pleasure at videos of families being torn apart by ICE agents. When Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed in cold blood by Trump’s occupying immigration forces in Minneapolis, conservatives celebrated and blamed the victims — for driving a car and carrying a legal firearm, respectively — to defend the deportation regime. They got many, many months of mileage out of laughing at Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband nearly being bludgeoned to death with a hammer in their San Francisco home, and everyone from Elon Musk to the president himself stirred up innuendo about the true motive behind the attack — because it certainly couldn’t be the case that the suspect was radicalized by the far-right internet.
When you center your political movement on cruelty, your critics will respond by delighting in your misfortunes.
Conservatives still, in the year 2026, deploy their “no angels” line to defend the police killings of George Floyd — who, they claim, was killed by a fentanyl overdose — and Trayvon Martin, who they argue shouldn’t have been in that neighborhood in the first place.
By elevating Kirk to a martyr beyond criticism or reproach, with serious personal and professional consequences enforced by the state, you make getting off a snarky tweet or a video dancing to a sappy AI song a logical reaction to repression. You transform the death of a man, one you claim to have loved very much, into a blinking red button that your enemies are itching to press.
The first rule of the internet holds that the second you get mad or declare a sentiment out of bounds, you’ll get laughed at to hell and back. In effect, conservatives have turned their own departed hero into a laughingstock and, worse, a meme.
Kirk is no longer able to spread his gospel on campuses across the country, but his image — of his life and of his death — will reign forever, filtered through a heavy layer of internet-infused irony.
Why Should Delaware Care? Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public. Below we highlight a few of those meetings that are happening this week.
Below you will find information about the most important or interesting public meetings happening in Delaware this week.
Early voting
Charity hospital care in Delaware
Kent County to discuss controversial solar farm
The Greenwood dissolution campaign
Early Voting
Early voting in advance of the Sept. 15 primary election continues on Tuesday at select polling locations in each county. Voters are allowed to visit any early voting site within their county of residence.
The primary election this year features more than 30 competitive races across the state, including Democrats running for their party’s nomination for attorney general, Republicans running for the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as candidates seeking about two dozen legislative races.
Once at the polls, election officers will verify a voter’s eligibility. The voter will then sign the pollbook before proceeding to a voting machine to cast a ballot.
Click here to see a list of polling locations. The Delaware Department of Elections also provides an interactive map allowing voters to find a nearby poll by entering their address.
📍 After the break for Labor Day, early voting resumes Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. It then continues Wednesday through Sunday, but on the shortened schedule of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Expanded charity care in Delaware
Members of a Delaware board charged with reviewing hospital costs in the state will discuss charity care at their meeting this week.
The IRS requires nonprofit hospitals to provide a “community benefit” to earn their tax-exempt status. Historically, that came in the form of providing free or discounted services, often called “charity care.”
Last year, Spotlight Delaware published an investigation calling into question the charity care practices at the state’s largest healthcare system, ChristianaCare.
Months later, lawmakers introduced a bill to increase the number of patients eligible to receive free treatment from the state’s nonprofit hospitals. The bill passed in June and Gov. Matt Meyer signed it into law in July.
The agenda for the Tuesday meeting of the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board lists several discussion items around the theme of charity care, including a presentation about charity care from an official at the nonprofit called Undue Medical Debt.
📍The Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Tuesday. It will be a hybrid remote meeting with an anchor location at the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services’ Herman Holloway Sr. campus, located at 1901 North DuPont Highway in New Castle. Attendees should go to Conference Room 2CR at the Main Admin building on the campus. For more details, including about the virtual attendance, click here.
More solar on Kent County farmland?
The Kent County Regional Planning Commission on Thursday will consider a controversial proposal to build a community solar field near Kenton.
The plan calls for the construction of solar arrays on about 16 acres of land currently used to grow crops, according to the county. The developer, Sunrise Solar, is seeking a conditional use permit.
The plans are before the county just as state officials are increasingly incentivizing solar energy amid a tight electricity market. But many proposed solar fields have also drawn local opposition.
On Friday, the News Journal reported that about 50 residents attended the previous Kent County Regional Planning Commission meeting to oppose the Kenton project.
📍The Kent County Regional Planning Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Levy Court Chambers, located 555 Bay Road in Dover. For more details, including about the virtual attendance, click here.
Could Greenwood be dissolved?
Residents of Greenwood will continue conversations Thursday about their proposal to disincorporate their Sussex County farming town.
Spotlight Delaware reported in July about the push to dissolve the town from residents who say its government is secretive, running out of money, and not providing citizens with adequate services. Among the critics are several town government officials.
Jordan Warfel, a member of the Greenwood Board of Adjustment, is leading the charge for disincorporation. A flyer obtained by Spotlight Delaware shows that he is organizing the Thursday informational meeting.
📍 The group, Unincorporate Greenwood, will hold its informational meeting on Thursday at 6:30 at the Greenwood VFW.
A historically unpopular president will take centre stage as the party seeks to sway voters with an unprecedented event
It seemed like a good idea at the time. In December 1978, Jimmy Carter, a US president besieged by inflation and energy crises, watched as thousands of Democrats descended on Memphis, Tennessee, for a rare midterm convention.
“It was wild,” recalls Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee. “It became a forum for Ted Kennedy to informally announce his opposition to President Carter. There was a lot of hostility to the president there. The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”
Connection across Tumen River is further sign of closer ties between the two countries since start of war in Ukraine
Russia and North Korea have opened the first road bridge across their shared border, in the latest sign of the rapidly deepening ties between the two countries since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The one-kilometre bridge spans the Tumen River between Khasan in Russia’s far east and Tumangang in North Korea, along a remote and sparsely populated stretch of the countries’ shared border just a few miles from the coast.
Kate Scott, Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards discuss their oft-viral approach to covering soccer for a US audience
It takes something special for a sports broadcast to outshine the action on the field. Yet that is often what happens on CBS Sports, where the Champions League studio show has struck a rare chord with viewers, most often broadcast on streaming branch Paramount+.
The usual group (Kate Scott, Jamie Carragher, Thierry Henry, and Micah Richards), have become fixtures on the American TV circuit, thanks in large part to their on-air chemistry. Scott guides the show expertly – all with with a mass of banter and ribbing along the way.
From home-run celebrations to tilted caps, players embracing joy continue to collide with an old guard devoted to Dust Bowl grimness
Over the last several years, simultaneously lauded and paralyzed by its ironclad traditions, baseball has undergone various forays into reinvention, trying to free itself from its unwritten rules of retaliation, its seeming aversion to joy, its demand that every generation of player of every culture and background play the game with the grimness of a Dust Bowl farmer.
The sport even attempted to change those customs by promoting a cultural shift with an industry-wide motto: Let the Kids Play. But in a time of intense division within the aggressive backdrop of Trumpism, the result is a racial clash that is actually a generational and cultural one that predates current politics by a century.
Howard Bryant is the author of 11 books, including Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field, and Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America. He writes at Substack.
Stanley Primnath and Brian Clark were two of only four individuals known to have survived above the impact zone in the north tower
He has told the story hundreds of times, but it never seems to fade. If anything, it only becomes more vivid. “Oh, gosh,” exclaims Stanley Praimnath, his voice cracking with an “ooooooh!” as if bearing a weight. “It’s like reliving that day.”
Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11 2001. But Praimnath and another office worker, Brian Clark, were two of only four individuals known to have survived from above the impact zone in either tower of the World Trade Center. The two strangers met in the smoke and fire of the 81st floor of the south tower, and walked down 1,620 steps into the rest of their lives.
Torrential rain causes widespread damage; while north-west South Africa hit by thunderstorms and central-southern US faces oppressive heat
Typhoon Saudel brought days of torrential rain to Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces in south-east China last week. The city of Putian, in Fujian province, recorded 416.5mm of rain in a 24-hour period between Thursday and Friday, with surrounding villages recording more than 500mm in the same period. In Fujian, authorities estimate that almost 600,000 people were evacuated from high-risk, flood-prone areas. A further 128,000 people in 53 counties were also affected across Jiangxi, with emergency evacuations affecting 9,000 people.
Flooding, landslips and infrastructure damage were reported widely in the region. More than 2,500 teachers and students were trapped in a school compound in the Zhejiang city of Wenzhou on Wednesday after extreme rainfall caused flash floods in low-lying areas. At least 1,260 people reportedly had to be rescued in Putian after a river embankment collapsed on Thursday, flattening 100 homes. On Saturday, a landslip in a village of Suichuan county, in Jiangxi province, killed three people and nine others remaining missing.
This year, the noise at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center has officially become A Problem. But changing it would mean changing society
The first thing you notice while sitting in the upper tiers of Arthur Ashe Stadium is the noise. A persistent exterior hum filters up from ground level, fed by the massive ventilation and cooling units that sit outside the stadium, the clack of the Long Island Rail Road to the north, and the forklifts receiving goods from the refrigerator trucks that keep the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center flush with its essential supplies of Evian, champagne, and premium IPA. Overhead, planes descending toward LaGuardia airport ensure the auditory assault takes place by land and air simultaneously. In the lower rakes of the stadium, the babble of the spectators is incessant; it’s not unusual to overhear full-volume conversations on various non-tennis topics – work, family, romance, last night’s dinner – that continue without interruption for the duration of an entire match.
New York is famously noisy, and the US Open, as the most glamorous annual sporting event in town, has always been loud in sympathy with its environment. Indeed, the brashness of the American grand slam has historically been its major selling point, the signature that distinguishes it from the Australian Open (the “happy slam”), Wimbledon (strawberries and cream, all-white attire, the home of tennis), and the French Open (French). People have been complaining about the volume of the New York crowd for decades. But this year the noise at the US Open feels different. This year noise at the noisy slam has become A Problem.
Our three cities are learning from each other about how to protect residents. These climate policies are also public health measures
This summer, mayors met in London during the heatwave that ironically threatened to derail London Climate Action Week.
As temperatures broke records across the UK and Europe, leading some climate talks to be suspended or cancelled, we found ourselves seeking shelter and comparing how our cities prepare for extreme heat: how we protect vulnerable residents, communicate risk, and redesign neighbourhoods for hotter summers.
Reuters reports:
Liquid Network, a Bitcoin-based payments and settlement network, said on Sunday that about $320 million was withdrawn from its federation wallet in a hack.
"Purported white-hat hackers" withdrew around 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin held in its Liquid Federation wallet, Liquid Network said in a post on X.
"Liquid wallets will be impacted," their post concluded, adding "and we're sorry for any inconvenience."
Longer battery life, faster chip, actually useful AI tools and better cameras keep quality Android ahead of competition
Google’s Pixel 11 continues to set the standard for what you should expect from the base model of a flagship phone with class-leading cameras, long software support and almost all the bells and whistles of its most expensive phones.
The regular Pixel 11 costs £879 (€999/$899/A$1,499) making it £80 or equivalent more expensive than last year’s model as the cost of RAMageddon continues to bite. It’s not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it comes with 256GB of storage and is £200 less than the Pixel 11 Pro, matching rival Samsung’s Galaxy S26.
Hi, so I already own a GT that I bought used....put some miles on it. Around 1300 miles on the board now. Whats my best option? Buy a gtfo kit or buy one of the X7 variants and try selling my board to make up some of the money?
GENEVA, Sept. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has today launched ISO 45010 - Occupational health and safety management — Menstruation and menopause in the workplace — Guidance, the world's first International Standard providing guidance to…
Richard Cooch couldn't hide his excitement Saturday as he saw a long line of people waiting to tour the house his family called home for more than two centuries.
TAIPEI, Sept. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The global automotive industry is entering a new phase in which semiconductors are becoming as strategically important as batteries, motors and manufacturing scale. As vehicles evolve into software-defined, AI-enabled platforms, chips increasingly determine everything…
A new streaming TV channel shows films made with genAI, reports Engadget. "Fairground AI Creator TV" is free — and supported with ads — describing its material as "AI Cinema":
"AI-generated" can make it sound as though someone typed a sentence into a machine and came back five minutes later to find a finished movie. Fairground's catalog shows why that description can be too simple. Take Lost Garden: The Awakening of the Lantern Knight. According to its Fairground page, creator Frank Houbre wrote the world, characters, mythology, emotional arc and screenplay himself. AI tools were used mainly for animation and visual production, with other tools helping create voices and music before the episode was assembled in conventional video-editing software.
There's still one question, the article notes: "whether viewers actually want an AI-focused TV channel." More than 100 AI creators have contributed to the 24-hour slate of programming, although Variety points out several of them were discovered on social media.
The channel was recently profiled in an article by the Guardian. Its headline? "'Nightmare fodder': Roku's AI slop channel is even worse than expected." (And its subheading calls it "a 24/7 channel devoted to low-quality AI content for viewers sick of watching real people move...")
What about people who hate plot and vision and the sight of people speaking convincing dialogue that synchronises perfectly with the movement of their lips? What about the people who just want to watch an unyielding torrent of eerily weightless nightmare fodder? Well, good news. Roku has finally caught up... Early reactions were, to put it mildly, not great. The Verge compared it to eating from a trough, while Futurism called it "bottom-of-the-barrel slop"...
On the plus side, the channel is evidence that artificial intelligence has come on in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years... However, it is still awful. Categorically, catastrophically awful. The channel doesn't so much offer shows as a drifting dreamscape of bad ideas rendered as horribly as possible with no thought paid to scheduling. At one point on Wednesday, a shrill high-frequency anime gave way to a long and staid German-language short about Nazi bureaucracy. After that came a sort of Gladiator ripoff that had all the dynamism of an exhibit you'd see at the fourth-best museum on a poorly planned family holiday.
Exclusive: UN special rapporteur on occupied territories says ban on goods from settlements ‘important’ but must go further if it is to amount to more than a ‘press release’
The UK’s planned ban on trade with unlawful Israeli settlements is a welcome, if overdue, first step and must be judged according to its practical impact, a UN expert has told the Guardian.
The UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has vowed to act more decisively against Israeli settlements, as well as continued restrictions of aid into Gaza, prompting the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to claim on Saturday that Downing Street was motivated by “Jew hatred”.
Dispute centres on stake held by Patarkatsishvili family in bottled water firm it jointly owns with Russian oligarch
A British theatre impresario and her billionaire family are embroiled in a bitter dispute with Ukrainian authorities seeking to seize a water company they jointly own with a Russian oligarch.
The row centres on a 34% stake held in the producer of Ukraine’s biggest bottled water brands by the Patarkatsishvili family, including Liana Patarkatsishvili, who recently worked on an immersive show with Toby Jones and Meera Syal.
Firms are more likely to use technology as ‘the intern in the office’ than as a replacement for skilled staff
Professional designers should not feel “threatened” by the rapid growth of generative AI, according to business leaders, despite fears over job losses in the sector.
With design and film production companies and manufacturers all adopting AI at an accelerating pace, industry bodies said the technology would be used to enhance the work of designers rather than replace them.
Hello floaters, can you please help me diagnose two nosedives I had on a recent ride? Both occurred while pushing the board pretty hard on sustained up-slopes on paved roads in the mountains. With how hard I felt I was pushing the board (and resulting nose dives) I was shocked to see that the duty cycle was only about 55% at the time of both nosedives. My only other theory was that the motor or controller was overtemp, however at the time of both nosedives, motor was about 52-57C and controller 43-45C according to the logs. Not sure how reliable this is.
Could you wise individuals impart some wisdom? Namely, what do you think may have caused this, and how can I prevent it in the future if duty cycle nor temperature alerts could have saved me?
Log from Floaty uploaded here, filtered on the time of the two nosedives. One more symptom that may not appear in the logs is that after the second nosedive (8:10pm), the board appeared to be off, and I had to press the power button to start it again. But if I filter on “Log level: All” in the Floaty app, I can see an log line with a question mark that says “Stop state: switch half” between the nose dive and when I pressed the power button again.
The load out:
OneWheel XRV Kit
Refloat 1.1.2
Can provide refloat config or anything else if needed, but don’t think this was a configuration issue.
Alternative for Germany failed to secure an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called firewall of mainstream parties' refusal to work with AfD.
By Sunday evening, the closure of eight airports had affected 170,000 passengers from 1,558 canceled flights, including 963 flights in Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport alone.
The populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has surged to a resounding victory in a crucial state election in Germany, but fell just short of winning a majority in its quest to form the country’s first far-right state government since the second world war.
The party of Germany’s unpopular chancellor Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democrats (CDU), slumped to a disastrous result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Sacramento, California — Independent journalist Nick Shirley is suing California officials over a new law expanding privacy protections for immigration support workers, arguing the measure could punish lawful investigative reporting.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court against Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, challenges Assembly Bill 2624. Critics have dubbed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” though that is not its official title.
Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the law adds qualifying immigration support providers, employees and volunteers to California’s Safe at Home address-confidentiality program. Applicants must show credible safety concerns, and approved participants can use substitute addresses in public records.
Shirley argues the law goes further by allowing participants to demand removal of certain personal information and potentially seek civil damages when protected information is published. His complaint says that creates a chilling effect because journalists could face liability even for information obtained lawfully.
Supporters say the measure is intended to protect immigration-service workers who have faced threats, harassment and doxxing, not to prevent legitimate reporting.
Shirley is seeking a court order blocking enforcement and a declaration that portions of the statute violate the First and 14th Amendments. Bonta’s office said it is aware of the lawsuit and will respond in court.
Katy McQue, who has spent years reporting on Meta and the potential harms its platforms pose to children, explains the tactics being used by prosecutors
For years, the investigative journalist Katy McQue has been reporting on the potential harms Meta’s platforms pose to children.
Yet, as she explains to Annie Kelly, despite the mountain of evidence compiled by journalists, prosecutors, bereaved families and others, it has been nearly impossible to bring Meta and other social media companies to court.
Slashdot reader DeanonymizedCoward writes: Reuters reports that the US Military is disabling ad tracking on devices, to prevent adversaries from buying publicly-available tracking data to assist in targeting troops. Military officials say that they have disabled trackers on a variety of computers and mobile devices, according to letters released on Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, and following reports that commercially-available tracking data has been used to target troops in the Middle East....
Wyden said in a statement that it was clear that the military's efforts "have not been effective at neutralizing this threat." U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, said that U.S. enemies "should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops." Rep. Harrigan remains silent as to the larger question of whether the general public should be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track anyone they please.
"The Pentagon said in an email it would respond to the lawmakers directly," Reuters reports:
The Army said in a statement that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers "since before 2021" but that Android and Apple mobile devices had only had it disabled by default "since at least February 2026...." The effort to reduce the location data generated by smartphones comes as military officials weigh increasingly strict restrictions on phone use overall. In July, Reuters reported that some deployed personnel in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones amid concerns that mobile videos they were posting to the internet were helping Iran target American bases in the region.
Selling my Onewheel GT. Comes with: • Onewheel GT (black) • GT Hypercharger (75V NMC Battery Charger) • Stand Mileage: 0 mi Condition: Well cared for, stored indoors. See photos for cosmetic condition. Some normal wear on the deck/rails from use. Not sure what a fair price is for this setup, open to offers, just want it to go to someone who’ll actually ride it. Let me know what you think it’s worth and I’ll get back to you. Can do local pickup around Fort Lauderdale area or will consider shipping (buyer covers cost given the size/weight). Happy to answer any questions or send more photos.
Oscar-winning actor says she and other outspoken critics of Israel have found it ‘impossible’ to get hired by major studios
The Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon has said she is still losing work because of her outspoken support for Palestinians, despite what she described as a broader shift in public opinion against US support for Israel.
Speaking at the Venice film festival, where she is promoting her latest movie The Echo Chamber, Sarandon said some parts of the film industry continued to shun her over her activism.
A new study published Friday in AGU Advances "depicts the most advanced picture yet of how a rare but massive solar storm could affect some US industries and electric systems more than others," reports CNN.
"During a 250-year solar storm, the East Coast would have widespread potential for grid failure."
Researchers modeled what a Carrington Event — a 1-in-150-year geomagnetic storm or even rarer — could mean for the modern day. They estimate the US economy would lose about $1.5 billion to $2 billion per day from direct and indirect costs, as millions of people face power outages. The findings show the most vulnerable areas are the Northeast and the Northern Plains, especially locations at higher latitudes.
No one knows when the next big storm will hit. While the most severe geomagnetic storms are labeled as once-in-a-century or rarer, these events don't follow a fixed schedule. "That timing only averages out on very long timescales," said Anna Kelbert, a geophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in the study but previously studied solar storm effects on power grids. "The event can occur at any time, as soon as a week from now, or centuries later...." [Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado], said the sun is now coming down from a period of heightened activity, which is also when some of the biggest storms to hit Earth have occurred in the past. "We still need a lot of work to be ready...."
"We haven't really seen events like this size in the modern era, where we've had all of this high technology and we've had the power grid of this size," said Ed Oughton, researcher at George Mason University and lead author of the new study... Because the US grid's actual structure is proprietary for security reasons, the team used engineering models to create various network and transformer setups including the 10,464 substations and 16,256 transmission lines found across the country... The grid structure also contributes to higher risk in some areas. For instance, the eastern US is linked together in a single grid interconnection. A voltage issue in Maine, if not isolated early, could cascade through the grid to Washington, DC. The West works similarly, whereas the Texas interconnection operates mostly within the state...
Power is restored over time depending on any alternative electrical paths that could bypass the substation or availabilities of spare transformers, for instance. "This nationwide analysis shows that we are currently ill-prepared to face a major magnetic storm, and that the societal impacts would be catastrophic," Kelbert said.
"The study estimates power disruptions for 5.1 million people and 135,000 businesses," according to the article, and "The outages could last from hours to days to weeks depending on the damage and resources available to get back online, said Oughton."
Alternative for Germany, labeled “extremist” by German authorities, polled first in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt but still might not control the government.
Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus near to station will make it easier for students and staff to commute
Not so long ago, the first impression for visitors arriving by train to Bristol’s main railway station was a derelict building described by David Cameron as looking like the entrance to a war zone.
On Monday, a shiny new University of Bristol campus on the site of that crumbling Royal Mail sorting office next door to Temple Meads is opening its doors to students, teachers and members of the public.
Some of the biggest American comics have gotten their starts at Boom Chicago, an Amsterdam improv theater. Seth Meyers, Jordan Peele, Amber Ruffin and Jason Sudeikis have all cracked jokes there.
Seth Meyers said the Dutch improv theater Boom Chicago gave him and his comedy partner Jill Benjamin a "road map" to create a show that eventually got the attention of "Saturday Night Live."
Francis Tiafoe and Carlos Alcaraz progressed with straight-set victories against Daniil Medvedev and Tommy Paul respectively
We’re 4-4 in the doubles and knocking up on Ashe. Thinking more about the match, I’d expect Townsend to use top spin to hit cross at Sabalenka’s backhand, taking her outside the lines if possible. She’ll also try and slow the game down, I think, and frustrate the champ, who doesn’t enjoy the wind-ups.
Townsend comes out wearing a coat that wouldn’t be out of place in the Night’s Watch, photo to follow but, in the meantime:
Armed suspect Patrick Havas allegedly attacks Amy Acton during a campaign stop at a fair, injuring several people
Amy Acton, Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, was the target of an attack on Sunday during a campaign stop at the Canfield fair, campaign officials said. Several people were injured when the armed assailant lunged at Acton.
The suspect knocked volunteers to the ground before he was arrested and was “discovered to have weapons”, Mahoning county Democratic party chairperson Chris Anderson said in a statement.
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests have surged under the Trump administration, with new data showing that many of those detained have no criminal convictions as the government expands its deportation campaign.
ICE recorded roughly 50,000 arrests in July, the highest monthly total of President Donald Trump’s second term, and enforcement remained at similarly elevated levels in August. Government data obtained and analyzed by the Deportation Data Project shows a growing share of arrests involve people without criminal records.
According to The Hill, 55% of those arrested had no prior interaction with law enforcement, while another 24% had faced charges but had not been convicted. Border czar Tom Homan separately acknowledged in July that about half of ICE arrests involved people he described as noncriminals.
The shift has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., warned the administration not to “conflate the gangster with the gardener,” while Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said some enforcement actions have gone too far.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has defended the broader approach, arguing that immigration violations remain enforceable regardless of criminal history.
The Deportation Data Project notes that ICE administrative arrests generally involve civil immigration violations, meaning the absence of a criminal conviction does not necessarily mean a person is lawfully present.
Three people in critical condition and two hospitalized as operations at one of busiest US airports brought to a halt
An Amazon cargo plane crashed at Miami international airport in Florida on Sunday afternoon after the flight, which was arriving from Puerto Rico, overshot the runway, striking several vehicles and resulting in at least five deaths.
The plane erupted in flames as dark smoke billowed into the sky, bringing operations at one of the busiest airports in the US to a halt. The pilot and copilot were trapped in the cockpit as a result of the crash, said the Miami-Dade rescue fire chief Ray Jadallah.
Jackie Young had a big fourth quarter and Breanna Stewart made her only basket of the game to put the United States up for good, helping the Americans escape with a 55-52 win over Italy in the Fiba Women’s World Cup on Sunday.
The US (2-0), who clinched a quarter-final berth with the victory, led only 42-39 after three quarters and fell behind by two points on three occasions in the fourth. Stewart’s jumper, assisted by Young, gave the Americans a 51-50 lead with 3:20 to go, and Young hit a floater on their next possession. Chelsea Gray made a pull-up with 1:07 left for an important cushion, but Italy hit a quick two-pointer in response to cut it to 55-52. Gray missed a shot on the next US trip but Young corralled the rebound to help her team bleed more clock.
Influencer livestreams event calling for men to travel to port to block coaches carrying asylum seekers from leaving
Hundreds of far-right activists have descended on Portsmouth, where a small boat with 140 asylum seekers on board was intercepted heading towards the Portsmouth coast. It sparked a major response with a helicopter, an aeroplane and lifeboats sent to the scene. It is thought to be the first time such a large boat containing asylum seekers has been brought to Portsmouth and the first time a large group of anti-migrant protesters have tried to block newly arrived asylum seekers from being processed.
The boat’s occupants have been brought to shore in the maritime city and the Home Office’s plan is to take them to Manston, outside Ramsgate in Kent, where small boat arrivals are processed.
Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that he has made “Hundreds of Billions of Dollars” through stocks and other holdings for the benefit of the United States rather than himself.
“I do this for our Country, not myself,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that he had made the money “on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A.” He did not provide documentation showing that his personal investment gains had produced hundreds of billions of dollars for the federal government.
Trump accompanied the post with an AI-generated image depicting himself trading stocks from the White House, including a screen showing Intel shares rising sharply.
The Intel reference drew attention because Trump’s investment accounts have purchased shares in several major companies while his administration has taken actions affecting those firms. The White House and Trump Organization have said his securities accounts are independently managed by third-party institutions and that Trump does not direct individual trades.
Trump’s certified annual financial disclosure, released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in June, details extensive business interests and investment activity. Mediaite reported that the disclosure showed at least $2.2 billion in income during 2025, largely from cryptocurrency and real estate ventures.
The president’s “hundreds of billions” claim is substantially larger than the income documented in his latest public disclosure, and his post did not explain how he calculated the figure.
TiVo is notifying customers about changes to "one of its longest-standing and most popular DVR features," reports the blog Cord Cutter News:
Starting November 2, 2026, the current version of SkipMode that allows users to jump over commercial breaks with a single button press on the remote will no longer be available. The company is instead preparing to test a new paid add-on called Premium Auto Commercial Skip.
SkipMode has been a core part of the TiVo experience for years. After a supported show finished recording, the service added markers that let viewers leap from the end of one program segment directly to the start of the next, bypassing the ads in between. On newer TiVo Experience 4 devices, users could even set the feature to automatic so commercials were skipped without any remote interaction. The feature was limited to popular prime-time programming on major networks, typically appearing a short time after a show aired.
Under the new plan, that one-button and automatic functionality will disappear from the standard service. Viewers will still be able to skip commercials the traditional way by using the 30-second skip button or the fast-forward control on their remotes. Those manual methods have existed on TiVo boxes for more than two decades and do not rely on the company's commercial-detection data.
In November, TiVo will offer a 30-day free trial of the new Premium Auto Commercial Skip service. After the trial ends, customers who want to keep the automatic or one-button skip capability will need to add it to their accounts for an extra monthly fee.
The company has not yet published the price.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.
Reigning champion beats Tommy Paul in straight sets
Sabalenka and Noskova to clash in last eight
The straightforward scoreline at the end of Carlos Alcaraz’s third-round win over Wu Yibing did not quite reflect the Spaniard’s slight irritation with one aspect of his game. Alcaraz felt he had missed a few too many forehands, and almost immediately after departing Arthur Ashe Stadium, he reappeared on the practice court pounding forehands in the afternoon heat.
Two days later, the extra care Alcaraz put into his game was reflected in a statement performance driven by his peerless forehand as he rose to the occasion in the biggest challenge of his comeback so far, dismantling the 20th seed Tommy Paul 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 to continue his title defence by returning to the quarter-finals of the US Open.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow said neither he nor his colleagues in Congress have received "any information" about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's sweeping leak investigation.
AfD Saxony-Anhalt is a racist extremist group, according to the German state's intelligence agency. The party may well trounce its rivals in this weekend's state election.
Storm, which may make impact as soon as Monday, is third system in weeks to threaten state during hurricane season
Hawaii has declared a state of emergency as powerful Hurricane Lowell makes its way toward the islands, with the first impacts expected as soon as Monday.
The storm is the third system in just over three weeks to threaten Hawaii during an active hurricane season in the central Pacific. Lowell remained a category 3 hurricane early on Sunday morning, packing winds of 125 miles per hour while moving north-west at six miles per hour.
Washington, D.C. — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin accused Democrats on Sunday of using rhetoric that he says is contributing to political violence as candidates intensify campaigning ahead of the midterm elections.
Speaking on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing,” Mullin said public officials face persistent threats and argued that political language can cross from protected speech into incitement. “The dangerous rhetoric that the Democrats use is absolutely stirring the pot or putting fuel on the flames,” he said. Fox News confirmed Mullin appeared on the program Sunday to discuss national security and political threats.
Mullin also pointed to threats against President Donald Trump and said elected officials across the political spectrum are increasingly vulnerable when appearing in public.
His comments come amid broader concern about political violence targeting officials from both parties. The Washington Post reported earlier this year that governors, mayors, state lawmakers and local officials have increasingly sought private security, armored vehicles and home protection as threats have grown.
Recent incidents have included assassination attempts against Trump, the killing of Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and past plots targeting Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Mullin said DHS would intervene when threats move beyond speech into illegal conduct, while emphasizing that political disagreement itself remains protected.
The remarks add to an already heated debate over whether increasingly confrontational political rhetoric is contributing to threats and violence against public officials.
House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain said she is supporting Rep. Max Miller's reelection bid for a third term because "I will support anyone with an R behind their name."
Witkoff says he hopes trilateral talks involving the US, Ukraine and Europe will be announced ‘in short order’
The US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travelled to Ukraine for the first time on Sunday for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an attempt to end the war with Russia.
The Ukrainian president announced plans to widen peace discussions to include European countries in the near future, saying he wanted to do “everything to ensure that trilateral meetings take place” with Ukraine, the US and Europe.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said she will ensure all eligible voters can submit ballots in the midterm elections, after a judge again blocked the Trump administration's mail-in voting order.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Democratic nominee for governor, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 6, 2026.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Sunoco chairman Ray Washburne, Republican midterm election chair, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 6, 2026.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Energy Secretary Chris Wright that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 6, 2026.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 6, 2026.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Lisa McClain, Republican of Michigan, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 6, 2026.
Revenues and team values have soared under leadership
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has agreed on a four-year contract extension that runs through the 2030 league season, ending on 31 March 2031.
In a memo sent to NFL owners on Sunday, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said: “We believe we are very fortunate to have Roger at the helm for the next four years.”
Chris Wright tells ABC there ‘may not’ be an agreement that would prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons
US energy secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday morning that the US may not be able to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran that would prevent the country from having nuclear weapons.
Asked on ABC on Sunday morning about any sign of such a deal, as negotiations appear stalled and the US-Israel war on Iran continues, Wright said: “There may not be a nuclear agreement.”
Vincent Janssen scores Timbers’ first MLS hat-trick
Embolo scores, Messi assists in charged match
Philadelphia Union midfielder Cavan Sullivan became the youngest player in MLS history to record a five-match goal contribution streak on Saturday.
At 16 years and 342 days old, Sullivan scored in his third consecutive MLS match on Saturday when he tallied in the 75th minute of the Union’s 2-0 victory over CF Montreal. He has three goals and three assists during his past five league matches.
Thursday 404 Media reported that Flock taught America's cops "how they could surveil the No Kings protests" against President Trump (as well as "small parades") in a webinar last year that described "using a mix of Flock's technology and law enforcement's own databases."
In the webinar, Flock's director of market management Caity Peak explains how real time crime centers — which are police surveillance centers that utilize Flock cameras and other surveillance cameras — can be used for emergency response, but can also be used to surveil "established events" like 4th of July fireworks displays, parades, bike races, Mardi Gras, and protests. The webinar shows just how routine the idea of always-on surveillance has become, and how casually it is used during extremely innocuous events. Peak explains that police can use FlockOS, a software platform that combines Flock's automatic license plate readers (ALPR), drones, gunshot detectors, 911 data, and other surveillance cameras (including ones Flock does not own) into a "single pane of glass" or single piece of software to look at various types of surveillance in one place during both emergencies and relatively mundane events in a city or town.
"Imagine that you're an incident commander, and you're working this No Kings Protest," Peak explains while a dashboard shows a series of surveillance tools overlaying the city of Denver. "If I'm somebody assigned a traffic post that's working this No Kings Protest, I really don't have time to go in [...] and look at all these places [for different intelligence]. This is an example of viewing all of that in one place...." The dashboard Peak shows includes traffic information, a "response plan" for the protest, the floor plans of nearby buildings, as well as a series of video feeds of both outdoor-mounted cameras and cameras inside businesses and government buildings.
404 Media and the Electronic Frontier Foundation previously showed that police have specifically used Flock cameras to monitor the No Kings protests and other First Amendment-protected activity... This webinar shows this type of surveillance is not anomalous, and is specifically taught by Flock. The webinar also shows that Flock's latest public stance — that its ALPR cameras are noninvasive technology, that they take only static images at a single place and time, and that they are primarily used to solve the worst crimes — is wildly misleading. Flock has time and time again pitched itself to police as a sort of operating system to solve crime and do real-time surveillance and predictive policing. ALPRs are just one part of this broader surveillance apparatus that Flock has created, markets to police, and teaches them how to use.
Protest using 10 coffins to symbolise struggling manufacturing industry to take place in Brussels
Job losses in EU manufacturing will rapidly increase unless Brussels stops the “colonisation” of industry by Chinese component manufacturers, a leading industry trade body has warned.
Eurometal predicts 300,000 job losses in manufacturing in the rest of 2026 because of expanding competition from China, which is now enjoying a record €1bn-a-day trade surplus with the bloc.
Legal fight continues as states begin sending out ballots for voters to vote by mail in November’s midterm elections
The Trump administration renewed its appeal to the US supreme court on Sunday to allow restrictions on mail-in voting, after a federal judge had blocked new limits on such ballots, just ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The latest filing follows a decision by US district court judge Indira Talwani on Friday to extend a court order preventing the US Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing Donald Trump’s executive order.
Slavery’s legacy continues ‘to deprive our country and our people’, says minister, as group prepares to appeal to Jamaica’s head of state
A landmark petition is to be handed to King Charles by Jamaica over slavery reparations, aiming to confront historical crimes that still disadvantage former British colonies, the Caribbean nation’s culture minister has said.
The petition will be lodged with Charles, Jamaica’s head of state, on Monday.
The filing comes after a U.S. District Court judge extended an order against the Postal Service enforcing President Trump's executive order for the November elections.
Schools and councils across England are expecting the proportion of children with special needs plans to double to one in 10, with families rushing to secure support before ministers bring in changes.
Headteachers have reported an “unreal” surge in applications for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) mandating support for needs or disabilities such as speech and learning difficulties, autism or ADHD. In 2025, just one in 20 school-age children had EHCPs.
Beijing wants banks and insurers to bolster investment in stock market as it helps to replenish cash reserves
China will inject $54bn (£40bn) into its financial sector as Beijing attempts to shore up banks and insurers in the face of faltering economic growth.
A host of financial institutions said they were due to receive billions of yuan in capital from state institutions including the ministry of finance and even the company that runs the country’s tobacco monopoly.
Irene Sankoff and David Hein discuss their acclaimed musical about the residents of Gander, Newfoundland, who offered aid and comfort to 7,000 air passengers and crew members stranded in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
San Diego, California — The family of 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez, one of two gunmen in the May attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, is suing the mental health facility that treated him, alleging staff failed to act on warning signs before the shooting.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 31 against Park Mental Health Treatment of San Diego, alleges negligence and wrongful death. Vazquez had been receiving residential treatment for severe depression, psychotic episodes and other conditions before the May 18 attack.
According to the complaint, the FBI contacted Vazquez’s mother four days before the shooting about concerning comments he had made online involving school shootings and suicide. His mother says she notified the treatment facility, but staff failed to sufficiently intervene. Vazquez left the facility the night before the shooting.
The lawsuit also points to earlier warning signs. Law enforcement had previously seized firearms from Vazquez’s father after concerns about the teenager’s behavior.
Vazquez and 17-year-old Cain Clark later attacked the mosque, killing three worshippers before both gunmen died by suicide. Authorities said about 140 children were present at the Islamic Center during the attack.
Park Mental Health has denied responsibility, calling the lawsuit “misguided” and saying Vazquez and his accomplice were responsible for their actions.
Separately, North Carolina prosecutors have charged 17-year-old Sarah Santiago with three counts of murder and conspiracy, alleging she helped livestream and distribute materials connected to the attack.
Washington, D.C. — Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall III said Sunday that he could not serve in President Donald Trump’s administration, accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of politicizing the military and creating a “climate of fear” inside the Pentagon.
“I’ve never seen an attempt to politicize our military like the one being conducted by Pete Hegseth,” Kendall said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Kendall, who served during the Biden administration, argued that Hegseth’s leadership style is discouraging military officials from giving candid advice and prompting experienced personnel to leave. He said senior officers have an obligation to resist orders they believe are illegal, unethical or morally wrong.
His criticism follows the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who left after months of reported tension with Hegseth. ABC News reported that Driscoll had repeatedly warned White House officials about Hegseth’s firing of senior officers and efforts to block some military promotions.
Hegseth has removed or sidelined numerous senior military leaders while arguing that personnel changes are necessary to restore accountability, readiness and what he describes as a stronger “warrior” culture. Critics, including some lawmakers and former officials, contend that the moves place too much emphasis on political loyalty.
Kendall also criticized U.S. military operations against suspected drug-smuggling vessels, calling the campaign unconstitutional.
Asked what he would do if he still headed the Air Force, Kendall rejected the premise entirely.
“I couldn’t serve in this administration,” he said.
Depending on your politics, the monsters are everywhere. Perhaps you see them in the form of tech billionaires and the artificial intelligence they’re developing. Perhaps you see them in the bin fire of social media they bequeathed us before that, or the legacy media that refuse to tell you “the truth”. You might see them in the manosphere, or the institutions teaching our kids gender fluidity. Maybe you see them in the migrant youth wielding machetes in the suburbs, or the refugee attempting to behead someone on a Belfast street. Or perhaps you see them in the violent anti-immigrant mobs that torched houses in response. If so, you’ll likely see them in the March for Australia or the Unite the Kingdom rallies, organised by far-right groups but attended by many more besides. You’ll almost certainly see them in at least one of Hamas, Israel or those local advocates at each other’s throats over the Middle East. I suspect you’ll see them in Russia but that can no longer be assumed. And I’d guess that you’d see them in at least one political party with a significant share of the vote.
Something in that paragraph probably outraged you. In which case, you’re probably seeing monsters in whoever sees different monsters from you. It would be easy here to make a point about polarisation. But I want to look at the deep disquiet that lies underneath.
Ash cloud from Anak Krakatau affects hundreds of flights and some school and fishing activities
Indonesia halted operations at eight airports on Sunday, including from its main international hub, affecting hundreds of flights as a result of an ash cloud from the Anak Krakatau volcano.
Saturday’s eruption, which produced lava and booming sounds that were heard up to 435 miles (700km) away, according to Indonesia’s geology agency, also interrupted some school activities and fishing. Two more eruptions were recorded on Sunday.
Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, former Carter White House speechwriter James Fallows offers thoughts on the legacy of 9/11 and how American daily life and civic culture changed after the attack.
"Sunday Morning" talks with people forever touched by the 2001 terror attacks, from a man who helped a woman escape the North Tower, to a Marine major who rushed into the Pentagon, to a young woman who lost her dad when Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.
Far-right linked group able to mobilise at scale due to police ‘inaction’, says founder of Hope Not Hate
The group of masked, black-clad vigilantes who blockaded roads in Dover could repeat the disruption unless police step up efforts to stop them, politicians and campaigners have said.
Responsibility for the demonstration has been claimed by Patriot Platform, an anti-immigration group with links to the far right, which styles itself as having a “fierce love for our homeland”.
The United Nations has an announcement. "The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa look far smaller than it really is."
By 164 votes to one, Member States on Friday endorsed a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents — the culmination of an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator projection, still the most widely used map in the world. The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a "radical ideological project." Six countries — Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine — abstained.
The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.
Behind that seemingly technical debate lies a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has, over generations, distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex continent... [With Mercator maps] landmasses appear increasingly enlarged the farther they are from the Equator. Greenland, for instance, can look roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger. Northern Europe and North America are similarly magnified, relative to equatorial regions. Despite its original navigational purpose, Mercator remains common in educational, media, digital and official materials. The resolution says those distortions have contributed to the "symbolic minimization" of Africa and perpetuated an unbalanced view of the world...
Equal-area maps do not make Africa larger; they remove the exaggeration Mercator gives landmasses closer to the poles.
The UN notes that hours before the vote, France's foreign minister announced the country was planning to abandon Mercator for its maps of the world.
Different paint recipes work for different uses. Two art conservators explain how analyzing paints from the past can reveal how they were made – and how best to preserve them.
When U.S. airspace was closed on 9/11, grounding 38 international flights on Newfoundland, a small town's residents gave shelter and comfort to 7,000 stranded passengers and crew members – generosity that inspired the musical "Come From Away."
As the dust settled on NYC following the 9/11 attacks, Robert De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal founded the Tribeca Film Festival as a way to pull Lower Manhattan out of the ashes and help revitalize a shattered city.
Montana’s Sam Forstag says US working class is left playing a game of chance while neither party serves its interests
At around five o’clock on a winter evening in 2013, then college student Sam Forstag was driving through a snowstorm toward his third job of the day, making sandwiches at the Subway inside a Walmart.
“I was always late,” Forstag recalled with a laugh more than a decade later.
I got a free Onewheel+ with a bad BMS and a loop key to bypass is my cheapest option. I understand the risks, this thing is only going to be used to ride around my yard and to/from my mailbox. Does anyone know of a pre-made loop key and/or DIY video on how to make the conversion?
On the morning of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla., when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, informed him that America was under attack – a singular moment, captured in an iconic photograph.
Experts discuss the symptoms, diagnosis and stigma surrounding postpartum psychosis (not to be confused with postpartum depression), a psychiatric emergency with symptoms that can be extreme and dangerous, as testified in the trial of Lindsay Clancy.
Leon Panetta tells Guardian US is risking ‘forever war’ and says Pentagon ‘turmoil’ sending message of weakness
Donald Trump’s war with Iran is likely to drag on for another six months, Leon Panetta, the former US defense secretary, has warned, as the US president struggles to find his way out of the controversial conflict.
Panetta declared in an interview that the war with Iran – launched by Trump over six months ago – risks becoming another “forever war in the Middle East”, with no clear end in sight.
Carmaker, which is battling Trump tariffs and Chinese competitors, faces talks with union leaders and government
The government has signalled that it will not invest taxpayers’ money to limit job losses at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), after it emerged that the UK’s biggest carmaker is planning up to 4,000 redundancies.
Before crunch talks on Tuesday between JLR, union leaders and government officials, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said it was not his job to “intervene and run businesses”.
Isar Aerospace plans rapid expansion amid race to capitalise on expanding satellite-launch market
A German startup has launched the first commercial rocket to reach orbit from continental Europe, a milestone for Europe’s efforts to secure independent access to space.
Isar Aerospace said on Sunday that it would rapidly expand satellite deployments after the first orbital launch of its uncrewed Spectrum rocket from Arctic Norway, marking a breakthrough for a region where several countries are seeking a foothold in the fast-growing market for satellite launches.
Consumers are increasingly encountering AI-generated images on food menus such as leathery meat and bread resembling reptile skin
During a recent lunch break, Jill Sennett saw something so unappetizing she had to share it with her 26,000 X followers: Artificial intelligence-generated menu images from a Jamaican barbecue pop-up restaurant in which the meats looked like leather belts crawling with tiny beetles.
The images were reshared by more than 500 people who similarly expressed their disgust. Eating is “such an essential human experience”, said Sennett, a 37-year-old nurse in Denver. “I think it’s a bad cultural thing that restaurants are converting to these horrific, uncanny food images that are unappetizing.”
The Reform UK leader is under pressure after senior aides appeared to plot how to bypass electoral laws on foreign donations
Sagal Abdi-Wali arrived in Camden as a child refugee from Somalia. She has worked for more than a decade as a volunteer and trustee for local charities and is a governor of two schools in the borough, according to Labour.
She was first elected as a councillor in 2022 and became the leader of the council in May, when she said: “Camden has been my home for 35 years. It is the place that gave my family sanctuary, that welcomed us, and that has shaped so much of who I am, what I stand for and what inspired my commitment to public service and to working for the community that welcomed us.”
Senior Reform UK figure has faced criticism within party after post about Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former child refugee
Labour has accused Reform’s Zia Yusuf of “straightforward racism” after he suggested the party’s frontrunner to replace Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection was not British.
Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former child refugee from Somalia and the leader of Camden council, has been tipped as an early favourite to contest the London seat for Labour after the former prime minister’s resignation.
Kalie McCrystal was hoping to break record in Alps
Athlete was last seen on Tuesday afternoon
Canadian athlete Kalie McCrystal has gone missing during preparations for a record attempt in the Alps.
McCrystal, from Squamish in British Columbia, was on a “reconnaissance/training session” in the run-up to her attempt at ascending and descending the 14,692 ft (4,478m) Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border.
Washington, D.C. — Hunter Biden is leaving open the possibility of running for president in 2028, though he stopped well short of announcing a campaign.
During an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis, the son of former President Joe Biden was asked whether he planned to seek the White House.
“If I get your endorsement, I may have to,” Biden replied. He also said he had not made up his mind and praised several Democrats who could enter the 2028 race, including Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Biden said two issues were particularly important to him: adherence to the Constitution and rule of law, and addressing addiction. He said he wants the next president to respect the constitutional system and noted that millions of Americans continue to struggle with substance abuse.
The remarks represent a shift from comments Biden made only weeks earlier, when he joked that if he announced a presidential campaign, people should check whether he had relapsed. He has spoken publicly about his own history of addiction and recovery.
There is currently no formal Hunter Biden campaign, exploratory committee or declaration of candidacy. His comments instead add another name to an already broad field of Democrats being discussed as possible 2028 contenders.
The presidential election remains more than two years away, and the Democratic field is still largely unsettled.
"No rocket had ever reached orbit from Western European soil — until today," reports Space.com.
DW.com reports that a Spectrum space rocket from German company Isar Aerospace launched today from the Arctic Norwegian spaceport at Andoya:
"Germany has spaceflight capabilities," said the country's Ministry for Research, Technology and Space on X, praising a "milestone that impressively demonstrates our country's innovative strength and technical expertise". This was the German company's second attempt to launch the Spectrum rocket into space. The first attempt, which took place 18 months ago, was unsuccessful.
The Spectrum rocket is designed for small and medium-sized payloads. It carried five smal satellites and an in-flight technological experiment, the company said. According to Isar Aerospace, the launch was for "both the vehicle's qualification mission and its first flight carrying payload." The move is believed to bring Europe closer to being able to offer satellite flights from its own territory. Several countries voiced interest in the growing market of commercial space missions, including Britain and Sweden...
Isar is also working on the development of a second launch site, located in Canada. The company said that while the US launched 198 rockets last year, Europe's tally was just eight. Isar's goal is to produce some 40 rockets a year. Although the rocket is not yet ready for mass production, Isar has already received orders through 2028.
Today's launch webcast was produced in collaboration with NASASpaceflight, notes Space.com. And they note that Spectrum chief engineer Nikolaos Perakis says"This is just the beginning... I'm really looking forward to the next steps."
Reuters quotes this statemnt from Norway's minister of industry and commerce, Cecilie Myrseth. "The fact that we can now launch satellites from Andoeya strengthens Norwegian and European security in the turbulent times we live in."
Cookout food gets repetitive when the same burgers and sides show up every weekend. These 17 recipes mix in sliders, salads, seafood, rolls, nachos, fried bites, and a chilled dessert.The post 17 cookout recipes for hosts tired of serving the…
Nigel Farage has acknowledged the overseas donation row engulfing Reform UK “looks bad” for his party but denied it had ever taken foreign money in breach of electoral law.
The Reform leader, who is battling to contain the fallout from the allegations, was asked to categorically rule out that foreign money had ever been funnelled to his party. He replied: “I can … never happened.”
Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s standing with women has weakened significantly heading into the November midterms, with multiple national polls showing him deeply underwater among female voters.
ActiVote’s latest monthly survey found 34% of women approved of Trump’s job performance while 64% disapproved, a net rating of minus 30. In June, the same measure stood at minus 16, meaning his net approval among women deteriorated by 14 points over two months. ActiVote’s overall August survey placed Trump at 37.9% approval and 56.4% disapproval nationally.
Emerson College Polling found a similar gender gap in mid-August. Women disapproved of Trump by 62% to 32%, while men were evenly divided at 48% approval and 48% disapproval. Emerson surveyed 1,000 likely voters and reported a 3-point credibility interval, while cautioning that demographic subgroups carry larger uncertainty.
Newsweek also cited Bellwether Research and Consulting polling showing 32% approval among women and reported that affordability remained their top concern. The pollster told Newsweek that some independents and Republican-leaning women who backed Trump in 2024 over inflation and living costs have since moved away from him.
The trend does not establish how women will vote in November, but it presents Republicans with a challenge as congressional candidates campaign alongside a president whose ratings remain substantially weaker with women than with men.
Affordable, fast-heating and with a clever air fryer function, this versatile model is a winner for outdoor cooks who are willing to give up the traditional flame
An electric pizza oven with no flame and no need to rotate the pizza may seem sacrilegious to purists, but the Ninja Artisan electric outdoor pizza oven solves many of the hassles of outdoor pizza making. There’s no lighting or monitoring a flame, no need to keep adjusting the heat, and no need for a turning peel, bulky gas bottle or constant use of an infrared (IR) thermometer (although you may still want one – read on for details).
Equipped with four presets – Artisan, Thin Crust, New York, Pan – plus a custom setting to enable you to bake your pizza exactly how you like it, the Ninja Artisan is as effortless as can be, even next to the simplest plug-and-play gas oven. As you might expect from Ninja, it’s a multipurpose cooker, too, transforming into an outdoor air fryer with a capacity to turn out up to 1.3kg of french fries, or bake six chicken breasts.
A Dr Seuss-style story written in seconds alerted me to the power – and perils – of the technology. But how can children embrace it without forgetting core skills?
When I was growing up, my dad and I often talked about a story we wanted to write together. It was called “The Day Nobody Went to Disneyland”. One day, the story goes, the weather is so perfect that everyone in the world decides to stay away from Disneyland because they expect it to be far too busy. But my dad, who has the same thought as them, sees the disappointment on my face that morning – and decides to risk it. We set off. And when we arrive, the park is completely empty. Nobody else was brave enough to visit. We have everything – the rides, shows, food – to ourselves.
I loved the idea of writing that story. But, as so often happens, we were too busy to do anything about it. Life ran away from us. I grew up, and we both forgot about it.
My parents’ generation may have been on to something when they railed against gambling. If only George Santos had listened
If only George Santos and Bill Simmons had my parents, they wouldn’t be facing down a hailstorm of condemnation for circumventing the basic rules and regulations of dubious “prediction markets” and online gambling. Kalshi just banned the former congressman George Santos from its service and he was forced to pay back his winnings after he was accused of the dumb person’s version of insider trading. He bet on himself to not attend the State of the Union address, then conveniently didn’t go. For his trouble, he won (and will be forced to relinquish) more than $17,000; he’ll also have to pay more than $80,000 in total fines from Kalshi and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Bill Simmons, the sports commentator, podcast host, and founder of The Ringer, had a different story.
After-school practice can squeeze dinner into a narrow window. These 15 back-to-school picks cover quick chicken, sliders, pasta, meatballs, casseroles, soup, and chili for busy school nights.The post 15 back-to-school picks worth making before the after-school practice rush starts appeared…
Global AC demand will inevitably accelerate as the world continues to warm amid the climate crisis
The greenest campaigners against climate change have long suffered from a crippling shortcoming: they too often frame the challenge as a problem of excess consumption. This motivates calls to “degrow” the economy and to curb the population. The claim is that humans consume too many resources, which in the context of climate change means too much energy.
Nowhere has the tension between this proposition and reality become more palpable during this sweltering summer than in the conversation over air conditioning.
Polling stations open in Saxony-Anhalt with anti-immigration party AfD predicted to gain 41% vote share
Polls have opened in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is predicted to emerge on top in an election that could have a groundbreaking effect on Germany’s political landscape.
About 1.7 million people are eligible to vote. Polling booths opened at 8am local time and will close at 6pm, when exit polls are expected to deliver an initial indication of whether the AfD has secured enough votes for an absolute majority, enabling it to govern the state.
So i have a V1 . Still working and i changed the tire lately.
I ride it occasionally to work (5km back and forth - 3 miles approximately)
It still rides fine . But lately i tried the nosedive app on my friends iphone to see how it look . And i checked the battety and i saw that . The batteries are not full as in the screenshot 1 . ( even that the battery is charged to 99%) .
I use the OWCE app screen shot 2 .
I mean is this a problem to change the battery or something?
Ps : i know that the v1 is old . But i can't afford a xr or a paint . Im based in spain so its also a hassle to find it .
Trump is unpopular and inflation is still high – and Democrats are looking to use that to their advantage
When voters went to the polls in the 2022 midterm elections, all the ingredients were there for Joe Biden’s allies to suffer a wipeout. The president was unpopular, inflation was high and historical trends predicted voters would take out their frustrations by ending the Democratic party’s control of Congress.
But when the ballots were tallied, the gains Republicans expected to make did not quite materialize. They had won the House of Representatives, but only by a slim margin, while Democrats had expanded their majority in the Senate and built up their strength in state legislatures.
Twenty-four years after he provided crucial testimony that helped send a man to Texas’s death row, DNA expert William Watson has recanted his opinion and called out Harris County prosecutors — including an assistant district attorney turned true-crime TV star — for distorting his conclusions to win a conviction.
In a new court filing seeking to overturn Jeffrey Prible’s 2002 conviction for the murder of a Houston family, Watson said he would never give the same testimony today. “Based on … changes in the field and my own increased experience and scientific knowledge, if I were asked to testify today, my answers to many of the questions asked by the State at trial would be different,” he wrote in a declaration filed on August 28. “Today I would provide more thorough and nuanced explanations.”
Watson also wrote that prosecutors “misrepresented” his testimony in both their opening and closing statements, and made “inflammatory” remarks that twisted both the science and his opinions.
Prible was accused of murdering his friends Steve Herrera and Nilda Tirado, who were found shot to death at their home in North Houston in 1999. A fire was started in an apparent attempt to cover up the crime; the couple’s three young children died from smoke inhalation. Prible had been hanging out at the couple’s home in the hours before they were killed, which made him an early suspect. But there was no evidence linking him to the scene — save for a DNA sample taken from semen collected from Tirado’s mouth. Prible had an explanation for this; as he told investigators at the time, he and Tirado had been having an affair behind Herrera’s back, and she had performed oral sex on him earlier that evening.
The case went cold until Harris County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Siegler took it over, reexamining the evidence and concluding that there was no innocent explanation for the presence of Prible’s DNA. Instead, Siegler decided, the semen was evidence of a brutal sexual assault that took place just seconds before Tirado was shot in the back of the head.
The theory was central to Prible’s conviction. “I would suggest to you what the evidence indicates is that the Defendant after killing Steve forced Nilda to orally copulate him at gunpoint and executed her as soon as he finished,” Siegler’s co-counsel, Vic Wisner, told the jury during the state’s closing argument. “As horrific as that sounds, that is the only logical conclusion that you can draw from that evidence.”
Siegler reiterated the claim to maximum effect: “She left this world with his penis in her mouth,” she told jurors in her closing, “hoping to God that her babies would survive the nightmare that is Jeff Prible.”
Prible’s case was at the heart of a three-part series published by The Intercept in 2023. The investigation explored how Siegler, who won 19 death sentences over the course of her nearly 22-year career in Houston, went on to become a true-crime celebrity in the decades after sending Prible to death row. The series also showed how her Oxygen Network true-crime reality shows — “Cold Justice,” now in its eighth season, and “Prosecuting Evil With Kelly Siegler,” starting its third season this fall — portray Siegler as a gifted crime-fighter and compassionate crusader for victims, even as she left a trail of questionable convictions in her wake.
In Prible’s case, as The Intercept’s reporting showed, Siegler built her prosecution not only on questionable claims about the DNA evidence, but also on the highly dubious account of a jailhouse informant who claimed that Prible confessed to him. This witness, it turned out, was part of a ring of snitches who cooperated with Siegler in exchange for assistance getting their own sentences reduced. During Prible’s federal appeals, multiple members of this snitch ring testified that informants offered Siegler false evidence against Prible — and one said that Siegler actually provided him with details about the case.
Jeffrey Prible, photographed on Aug. 6, 2026.
At best, Siegler was careless about scrutinizing the information they provided. At worst, as Prible’s lawyers argued to a federal district court, she actively conspired to win a conviction despite knowing the case wouldn’t otherwise hold up — framing an innocent man for murder.
In 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison overturned Prible’s conviction, finding that Siegler had withheld key information about her dealings with the informants from Prible’s defense. “Without question, the prosecution in this case engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior and active concealment. And the evidence suppressed sufficiently serves to contravert the primary basis for Prible’s conviction,” Ellison wrote. “Siegler intentionally and knowingly withheld information,” he went on, and “was deceptive about her efforts to do so.”
“This new evidence shows that Prible is actually innocent.”
Texas appealed the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Rather than considering the evidence that Siegler had violated Prible’s constitutional rights, the court instead reinstated Prible’s conviction based solely on procedural grounds. In the new state court filing, Prible’s legal team, led by Austin attorney Gretchen Scardino, reupped their previous allegations while also arguing to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Watson’s recent recantation further undermines Prible’s conviction.
“This Court has not had the opportunity to review the trove of new evidence that came to light during the federal habeas proceedings, until now,” they wrote. “And even beyond that new evidence, there has been a significant development in Prible’s case.” Watson’s declaration cites “significant changes in the field of forensic biology, in the progression of the scientific methods used to analyze the evidence in Prible’s case, and in his own scientific knowledge,” they continued. “This new evidence shows that Prible is actually innocent.”
Watson first expressed misgivings about his trial testimony and the way it was weaponized in an interview with The Intercept in 2023. His answers were more definitive than they should have been, he said, and he certainly did not intend to endorse the state’s insistence that there was “no way in the world that semen wasn’t deposited either moments before or seconds after Nilda died.” “‘No way in the world’ is not something I would have said,” Watson told us.
The DNA from Tirado’s mouth was one of three samples collected after the murders. DNA matching Herrera, Tirado’s boyfriend, was also found on vaginal and anal swabs. At Prible’s 2002 trial, Watson testified he’d never before been able to extract a male DNA profile from an oral swab, and that his understanding was that sperm wouldn’t persist in the oral cavity absent Tirado’s murder. Siegler crudely emphasized these findings during her closing argument. To believe Prible’s claim that he and Tirado had engaged in consensual sex, she declared, jurors would have to believe that he had “some kind of magic semen … that somehow lives longer than any of y’all’s or any other man’s in this whole universe.” Moreover, “you’ve also got to believe that his semen is so tasty that she walked around savoring the flavor of it in her mouth for a couple hours. That’s the only way it’s going to end up still in her mouth after she’s dead.”
“These inflammatory remarks are not only scientifically baseless, but also highly inappropriate.”
In his new declaration, Watson took exception to Siegler’s closing. “I never testified to this, nor would I,” he wrote. “These inflammatory remarks are not only scientifically baseless, but also highly inappropriate.” Not only has his original understanding changed, Watson wrote, there is also no way to determine which of the three DNA samples was left first. In other words, while the state’s case was built on the assumption that Prible’s DNA was deposited last, in reality it was not scientifically possible to make such a claim.
Central to Prible’s new filing is a Texas law that explicitly offers defendants an opportunity to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence. “Although there was little available literature on the subject at the time, the scientific consensus today is that spermatozoa can survive in the oral cavity of a living person for up to fifteen hours — and even longer in a deceased person,” his legal team wrote. Their argument is supported by a new report from a second DNA expert, who explains that recent scientific advancements show that Watson’s testimony was, as Prible’s attorneys write, “wholly unsupportable.”
How the Harris County DA’s office responds to the new evidence remains to be seen. Kelly Siegler did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Assistant Federal Public Defender Nat Lombardo wrote, “Jeff Prible has spent nearly half his life on death row for a crime he did not commit. … This evidence supports Jeff’s account, from the very beginning, of what happened that night. Put simply: if Jeff were tried today, the State would have no case. We hope the DA and the courts do the right thing and give Jeff Prible his life back.”
Prible, who has been on death row for nearly 24 years and has seen dozens of his neighbors taken to the execution chamber, remains hopeful. “The way I see it, it is a true test of faith,” he wrote in a message to The Intercept. “I know in my heart of hearts my best days in this life are still yet to come!”
Climbing borrowing costs have become a headache for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. But the United States is not the only country grappling with the potentially destabilizing consequences of soaring government debt.
Donald Trump’s business ally and son-in-law now heading from Moscow to Kyiv to meet Zelenskyy
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are heading to Kyiv for the first time in their roles as Donald Trump’s peace envoys to Ukraine, after talks on Saturday in Moscow.
The White House said Witkoff and Kushner had “discussed substantive plans for next steps” towards ending the war between Ukraine and Russia during their meeting on Saturday in Moscow with Vladimir Putin.
This year's Hugo Award winners were announced last weekend at Worldcon — the world's longest-running science fiction/fantasy convention. The Orange County Register reports there were fans "clad in capes, gowns and elaborate character costumes," with famous attendees including Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, who held a book signing:
Martin attended his first Worldcon in 1971 in Boston, before he published his first novel. Fresh out of his graduate studies, Martin, then 22 years old, found a community of fellow comic book fans and genre enthusiasts... "It was a transformative experience," Martin said. "Worldcon is the heart of the science fiction fandom." Four years later, Martin won his first Hugo Award for his novella, "A Song for Lya," which made him the award's youngest winner — a record he held until Sunday night, when 25-year-old Los Angeles writer H. H. Pak took home the award for Best Novelette. [Read that novelette here...]
Notable writers and artists, such as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" screenwriter Ronald D. Moore and graphic artist Stan Sakai, announced the [Hugo award] categories. In their acceptance speeches, winners acknowledged the enduring strength of their community amidst rapidly evolving physical and social environments. They also praised the power of speculative fiction in facilitating dialogue on real-world issues and the importance of human-made art. Among the winners were C. B. Lee, whose novel "Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe" won the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book; the team behind Apple TV's "Murderbot: 'All Systems Red," which won for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form; and John Scalzi, who took home the trophy for Best Series [for Old Man's War]. The night concluded with its most anticipated award — Best Novel — which went to " The Everlasting" by Alix. E. Harrow, a fantasy time-loop novel about a scholar forced to rewrite his nation's history.
AppleTV's Murderbot episode beat nominated episodes from other several popular streaming series:
Doctor Who (âoeThe Story & the Engineâ)
Pluribus (âoeWe Is Usâ)
Severance (âoeCold Harborâ)
The Wheel of Time (âoeThe Road to the Spear)
Overall the awards committee had received 23,543 nominations this year for 4,299 works and individuals, according to the official Hugo Awards site. Other interesting winners:
Best Graphic Story or Comic: A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel, written by Ursula K. Le Guin, adapted and art by Fred Fordham
Best Short Story: "In My Country" by Thomas Ha
Best Novella: The River Has Roots
Best Related Work: Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age by Ada Palmer
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Sinners
Best Game or Interactive Work: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Most gambling websites nudge users towards accepting tracking data and harvest it before consent is given, study shows
Online bookmakers and casinos have been accused of widespread non-compliance of information privacy requirements, including “data surveillance” of customers, according to a study.
Nearly nine out of 10 (86%) licensed British gambling websites appear to be flouting the general data protection regulation (GDPR), the strict rules governing how organisations can collect, store and process personal data, according to the research.
Lt. Dakota Black of the Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma, says the case of Makayla Meave, a missing teacher's aide, was one of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career.
Taraneh Rahimi was told prison guards would rape her sister, Romina, if she did not sign a confession
The twins were 19 and still in high school when they were taken from their beds in the dead of night by masked men later identified as being sent by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
After four months of desperately seeking news from hospitals and state institutions, their mother, Marzieh Nourmohammadi, finally learned their fate. Taraneh and Romina Rahimi had been seized over their decision to join millions on the streets of Iranian cities during the January protests against the regime. The twins were unrecognisable by the time of their mother’s prison visit in May.
Exclusive: Tan Dhesi says Argentinian threats make it more crucial than ever that PM increase defence spending
Javier Milei’s threats to the Falkland Islands make it even more important that Andy Burnham increase defence spending immediately, according to the Labour chair of the defence committee.
Tan Dhesi said the comments by the Argentinian president this week show why the government should raise military spending to 3% of GDP by 2030. But he said Burnham’s plans remain mired in confusion after the prime minister appeared to reassure him that the 2030 target would be hit, only for Downing Street to later retreat.
Hannah Pettey, 22, a married mother of two from Alabama, suffered debilitating pain and lost more than 45 pounds as her health rapidly declined. Doctors suspected either her mother or her husband were trying to poison her.
Police received information nearly immediately after the killing. It took Las Vegas police 27 years to make an arrest
For years, US law enforcement officials blamed their failure to solve hip-hop star Tupac Shakur’s murder on the lack of cooperation from key witnesses, and on gang members’ “snitches get stitches” culture.
But testimony in a much-delayed murder trial, which concluded this week, almost 30 years after Shakur’s death, highlighted just how much law enforcement officials knew about the shooting, and how early.
Travellers to the EU could face renewed border queues as flexibility measures for the bloc’s entry-exit system officially come to an end – although numerous sources have indicated that some member states will not enforce biometric checks.
Airlines last week called on the European Commission to extend discretionary powers to pause EES controls when necessary until the end of 2026, with the deadline for “flexibility” passing on 6 September.
It’s no surprise some analysts say we are already in the midst of the third world war, but ordinary people have more power than we think
Don’t look up! The world is a mess. The sky could fall in any day. Unending wars, expanding humanitarian crises, rising authoritarianism, dysfunctional democracies, rampant racial and religious extremism, and unchecked lawlessness cast a dark cloud as the west’s new political year begins. Set all that against a backdrop of staggering global economic inequality, corporate and individual greed, irresponsible government indebtedness, dangerous AI gambles, climate breakdown and proliferating nuclear weapons, and a truly apocalyptic global outlook begins to take shape. It’s enough to make anyone shut their eyes, cover their ears and utter a Munch-like scream. And it’s only getting worse.
Democratic leaders who promise a better, safer, more optimistic future – what Britain’s freshly arrived prime minister, Andy Burnham, calls a “new era of possibility” – cannot escape this wider international context. Last week’s global bond market upheaval, sparked by external factors, left Burnham’s cash-strapped government struggling with sharply increased borrowing costs before he barely got started. The fact he chose Ukraine for his first overseas trip, while symbolically important, highlighted another grim reality. As a lead opponent of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, Britain now finds itself in a de facto state of war with Russia – and facing attack. Argentina, too, is eyeing UK defence vulnerabilities. These are not the sort of possibilities Burnham envisaged.
Rockstar Games and the mayor of Miami-Dade county are discussing a joint marketing campaign transforming parts of the county to look like areas from Grand Theft Auto 6, reports the blog Rock Paper Shotgun:
The proposed publicity event would include "an immersive arrival experience" at Miami International Airport. with signs for Vice City and planes coated in GTA 6 livery, together with branded Metromover skytrains and specially designed manhole covers... [I]t proposes a dockyard visual installation inspired by GTA 6's Port Gellhorn, incorporating cargo containers, cranes, and cruise ships. There's also talk of a "Vice City Motor Fest", which might feature "classic cars, customized vehicles, lowriders, motorcycles, tropical graphics, and local entertainment within a controlled, family-appropriate setting." Attendees would presumably be discouraged from nicking the cars...
As it happens, Rockstar have embedded a team in Miami to sponge up the ambience, research Miami culture, and study the habits of residents — including "ex-criminals", in the careful phrasing of senior vice president of narrative Rupert Humphries.
The pitch suggested murals, "wrapping" buses (with special signs at transit stops), and even a Vice City-inspired baggage-claim installation at the airport. The pitch also suggested the library offer recording equipment for "Vice City Radio" to capture music (as well as podcasting, oral histories, neighborhood storytelling) — along with " limited-edition GTA VI-inspired library cards, collectible bookmarks, Miami-themed reading and music lists, and demonstrations of the new recording and production equipment."
Though nothing has been formally agreed to or approved, the mayor's office confirmed the discussions, reports Axios.
The sheriff of Miami-Dade county "has publicly opposed plans to transform the city into a real version of Grand Theft Auto 6's "Vice City", reports Kotaku. The sheriff's reason? The videogame city "includes murder, robbery, drug trafficking, carjacking, violence against law enforcement," as well as "other conduct" that the police department works "every single day to prevent."
Officials put one second back on clock after review
No 16 Wolverines survive in Whittingham debut
Given an unlikely second chance at a game-ending Hail Mary, Bryce Underwood connected with JJ Buchanan for a 47-yard touchdown pass that lifted No 16 Michigan over Western Michigan 13-12 on Saturday night.
The Wolverines were 27-and-a-hakf-point favorites in coach Kyle Whittingham’s debut. The Broncos thought they’d secured a historic upset when Underwood’s first Hail Mary sailed out of bounds with the clock expired.
Austin, Texas — President Donald Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., has committed at least $10 million to support Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his U.S. Senate race against Democrat James Talarico, according to a new Federal Election Commission filing.
The spending is split evenly, with $5 million devoted to advertisements supporting Paxton and another $5 million targeting Talarico. The investment comes as Republicans work to defend a narrow Senate majority in November and Texas emerges as one of the most expensive contests on the map.
Trump has already endorsed Paxton and said Friday that MAGA Inc. plans to spend between $400 million and $500 million on Republican candidates during the final stretch of the midterms. Reuters reported that the super PAC has amassed a war chest approaching $1 billion, giving Trump significant resources to influence congressional races nationwide.
The Texas contest has drawn growing national attention as polling shows a close race. Republican leaders have also emphasized the high cost of competing statewide, where advertising across multiple major media markets can quickly consume campaign resources.
Paxton has benefited from other outside spending as well. Elon Musk’s America PAC recently spent nearly $250,000 supporting his campaign as part of a broader push into competitive congressional races.
MAGA Inc.’s $10 million commitment signals that Trump and his allies are treating Texas as a priority despite the state’s longstanding Republican lean.
Serhii Beskrestnov says deadlock on frontline and increasing use of deep strikes is placing civilians and infrastructure at greater risk
Russia and Ukraine are locked in an escalating war of long-range strikes with a growing risk to civilians in which neither side can entirely prevail, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s defence technology adviser.
Serhii Beskrestnov, widely known by his call sign, Flash, said he was worried about the prospects for Kyiv this winter, and suggested elderly people should be evacuated in case Russian bombing were to knock out the capital’s energy supply.
SHREVEPORT, La. — With college football underway and the NFL season kicking off, bars and restaurants across the ArkLaTex are welcoming fans looking for a place to catch the action. Business owners say football season typically brings an increase in…
Robotaxis are on the roads of London, marking Uber's biggest real-world challenge yet in a busy city built on a dense layout and countless roundabouts.
39 U.S. congressional candidates "reported paying for an OpenAI subscription this election cycle," writes the Washington Post, citing campaign finance disclosures.
This means the campaigns "are using the technology to court voters — despite limits imposed by leading AI companies to protect elections from the technology's risks."
Two [candidates] said explicitly in filings that they had used the subscription for advertising, even though the company's policies prohibit candidates from using their tools to generate ads.
Another candidate disclosed using AI to draft and personalize political messages or create synthetic media, though they did not specify which software they were using... Around 30 political action committees and parties have reported payments to OpenAI, with the Republican National Committee ranking as the company's largest political spender at roughly $9,700, the analysis found... Political consultants say the disclosures understate how many candidates are using ChatGPT and other AI tools to craft messages for voters... "For the most part, people are using it to write their emails, write their ad copy, write their scripts," [according to Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist who has advised campaigns on AI]. "But no one is going to go around saying, 'I'm using AI.'"
The lack of transparency from campaigns reflects a paradox facing politicians: Generative AI is growing ubiquitous, and candidates could be at a disadvantage if they're not using the tools. But voters are less likely to trust messages they know were generated with AI, studies have found, making campaigns loath to disclose using it. Political consultants expect that as Election Day approaches, more campaigns will outsource AI-generated ads and materials to super PACs, much as they do now with negative ads. Katie Harbath, CEO of the tech policy consulting firm Anchor Change and a former Meta executive, said there are many parallels between negative campaign ads and AI: Voters say they find such ads distasteful, but politicians keep using them because they work. "Typically, you would give some more negative stuff and more risky stuff to those [outside] entities," said Harbath, author of the upcoming book "Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy".... "You're starting to see the tension on the left about using it, where they're saying, 'If the right is using it, why aren't we?" Harbath said. "It can be a huge disadvantage if you're not using this in voter-facing materials...."
AI companies have developed policies to prevent targeted disinformation. But a Post analysis found that OpenAI unevenly enforces its restrictions, making it possible for campaigns to circumvent its election rules. In late July and early August, The Post prompted ChatGPT to generate targeted campaign messages. When asked to craft fundraising text messages targeting moms on behalf of a female veteran running for office, ChatGPT produced multiple tailored texts in an apparent violation of company policies. But when given the same prompt this week, the chatbot declined to produce the messages. "I can help with general campaign fundraising language, but I can't draft political persuasion or fundraising messages specifically targeted at a demographic group such as moms," the app responded. The chatbot also inconsistently enforced rules that prohibit campaigns from using its tools to write emails to voters. In tests this week, the chatbot at times complied and wrote an email soliciting donations on behalf of a specific candidate. But given the same prompt later on the same day, it denied the request...
Wilson, the Republican political consultant, said OpenAI should get more feedback from political consultants and campaigns on its policies, because the rules can at times seem arbitrary or contradictory. It doesn't make sense, for example, that a campaign can use ChatGPT to develop its policy on early-childhood education but not to create a social media post promoting that policy, he said. Political consultants are primarily using AI for internal tasks, a survey earlier this year from the American Association of Political Consultants found. Fifty-seven percent of the consultants surveyed reported using AI for their work on a daily basis, up from 34 percent a year earlier.
"So far, election-related deepfakes have been quickly debunked or gained little traction in U.S. elections," the article acknowledges.
"More than 30 states have created a patchwork of laws limiting how politicians can use deepfakes in campaigns, but states often have limited resources to enforce the laws, and some have been challenged as unconstitutional."
Republican National Committee Midterm Convention is a rare mid-cycle gathering of party leaders and delegates President Trump has called as a way to rally the party faithful ahead of November's contests.
Robin Morgan, a wholesome child star of the 1940s and '50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died at age 85.
Preservationists worry board may seize on incident ‘to make the point that the whole thing needs to be shut down’
Falling debris from a ceiling in the grand foyer of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts may have complicated a battle over renovations of the Washington DC arts center that could result in the building being demolished.
A portion of the ceiling collapsed on Friday evening after heavy rain swept through the area, prompting officials to temporarily close the Edward Durell Stone-designed building. No one was injured by the debris.
I’m a surfer with a Sprinter van and I’m looking for a Onewheel that will live in the van and be used as a utility vehicle for surf/road trips. I recently rented one on a surf trip up to Canada and feel that it will work really well for my needs. Most of the time I’ll use it to check surf spots, get to remote fishing spots, ride down dirt roads and trails, get down to the beach, or cruise around campgrounds. I will be using it to transport my Surfboard, which I’ll put in a Surf bag with a shoulder strap from time to time. Every once in a while I might ride it on the street to go check something out, but pavement will definitely be secondary. Most of its life will be spent on dirt, trails and beach access. My priorities are: Stability — this is #1. Off-road capability — dirt roads, trails, gravel and hard-packed beach sand. Reasonable weight and size — it’s going to live inside my Sprinter and I’ll be lifting it in and out regularly, so I really don’t want a huge, super-heavy board. I see this more as a utility tool for my van and outdoor trips than something I’m buying just to go out and ride for fun. If this were your use case, which board would you buy and why? And how would you set it up for dirt/trail/beach use.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is now on Bluesky, they announced this week. But "We can't advocate that you sign up for a Bluesky account like we do with Mastodon or PeerTube since signing up for Bluesky means loading the registration page's nonfree JavaScript..."
While federated, Bluesky is generally not considered part of the "fediverse" network of social media services like Mastodon and PeerTube, as it uses its own AT protocol rather than ActivityPub... Hosting your own Bluesky "Personal Data Server (PDS)" and relay is technically possible, but generally far more difficult and resource-intensive than spinning up an instance of Mastodon, let alone any of the lighter-weight ActivityPub servers like Akkoma or Starling.
Much of the Bluesky codebase is freely licensed. This allows users to run, copy, modify, and share large parts of the codebase. However, Bluesky's web client still serves nonfree JavaScript to users, just like its registration page. (Since our script was written for us specifically, we have not extensively vetted all available clients.)
Why did we sign up? Simply put, we have to continue to reach people where they are. Bluesky is a decent choice for us that evades many of the issues of other, more problematic networks... We accepted running Bluesky's nonfree JavaScript a single time if it meant being able to reach people who have never heard of software freedom.
The FSF's blog post advises supporters "If you're on social media, follow the FSF on Bluesky and on Mastodon today."
Slashdot also has an account on Blueky.
US president suggests he might support his Argentinian ally’s drive to reclaim sovereignty of disputed islands
Donald Trump has long embraced vengeance. “I am your retribution,” he declared to an admiring audience at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as he commenced his march back to the White House.
It is unlikely Argentina, and far-flung holdovers of the former British empire, were on the US president’s mind at the time.
Blaze causes electricity supply failure and disruption of services to airport and Reading
Hundreds of passengers were evacuated from a train, and services to Heathrow airport were cancelled, after a fire near tracks in the London Paddington area caused major disruptions to London’s rail network.
The fire caused an electricity supply failure which left all lines between Paddington and the airport blocked, National Rail said on Saturday afternoon.
Officials accuse National Liberation Army of launching strike followed by clash inside military compound
An attack involving explosives dropped from drones followed by a clash inside a military compound in north-eastern Colombia has killed at least three soldiers and wounded four, Colombia’s army said on Saturday.
Local authorities blamed the attack – which took place late on Friday – on the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN).
Duty falls by precedent to William to attend service of late monarch, alongside Princess Royal, who is godmother to new king Haakon VIII
The Prince of Wales is to represent his father at the funeral of King Harald V of Norway next week, Buckingham Palace has announced.
William, the heir to the throne, will be joined by his aunt the Princess Royal, who is attending in a private and personal capacity as godmother of the new king, Haakon VIII.
Taylor Fritz and Flavio Cobolli lost from winning positions, Madison Keys collapsed from 5-0 up in the final set, but Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and Mirra Andreeva reached the last 16
Last night Serena and Venus Williams – with their combined age of 456 - blew a five-point lead in the deciding tie-break as their return to the grand slam doubles stage ended in defeat, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (7) against Chan Hao-ching and Maya Joint. Serena must be sick of the sight of Joint – given her singles comeback was also halted by the Australian in the Wimbledon first round this summer – but having come so close to victory in both matches, she may well be encouraged enough to continue. Serena and Venus chose not to do a post-match media conference last night – so it’s not clear what their next plans are.
A big cheer on Grandstand – despite the fact Zheng is facing an American – as she holds at the start of the second set. Anisimova is still a break down, 3-2, against Potapova, while Taylor Fritz – the pick of the American men in the first week - is warming up on Arthur Ashe against Francisco Cerundolo, the 24th seed from Argentina.
Some 49% of voters surveyed leaned Democrat, including independent voters asked to pick one party or the other. Only 39% of respondents leaned Republican.
Argentinian beats No 9 seed 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4
Fritz had three break points for chance to serve for match
As his last, desperate backhand soared far past the baseline inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, Taylor Fritz instantly held his face in his hands, unable to hide the agony of squandering such a great opportunity.
For much of his afternoon, Fritz was cruising. He had established a two set against Francisco Cerúndolo before breaking serve in the opening game of the third. One unfocused service game was enough to shift the momentum and once Fritz had lost control, he spent another two hours failing to retrieve it. His US Open ended with an excruciating 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 third-round defeat by a courageous Cerúndolo.
When I try to log into the owner’s portal on my.onewheel.com it sends me an email verification code and when I enter the numeric code it says to check email for link to confirm email but never sends the link. I’m stuck in a loop of only receiving verification codes but no personal link to my owner’s portal. I’ve checked junk mail and have followed all instructions. Has anybody else encountered this and figured it out?
"There are now more seniors in the world than young children," reports the International Business Times, citing a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau report. And it warns that "The share of the population aged 65 and over is projected to nearly double, from 10.5 percent (about 1 in 10 people) in 2025 to 19.6 percent (about 1 in 5 people) by 2060."
The world is expected to add another 2 billion people from 2025 to 2060, increasing global population from around 8 billion to around 10 billion... "Over one-half of that growth (1.148 billion) is projected to come from an increase in the population aged 65 and over," the report states. "By contrast, the population at younger ages (age 0-19) is projected to stay relatively constant due to persistent low fertility. As the size of the older population grows rapidly and the youthful age population remains roughly the same, the percentage of the population aged 65 and over is projected to increase."
The report notes that the birthrate in 71 percent of countries is now below the replacement level of 2.1. China, in particular, has seen its birthrate plummet. In 2023, birth rates per woman in China hit 1.06...
Aside from lower birth rates, the fact that people are living longer is one of the primary driving factors. The report notes that people are also living a healthier, more active life for a longer time.
No one was injured when a piece of the ceiling inside the Kennedy Center's grand foyer partially collapsed Friday evening, said Roma Daravi, the center's vice president for public relations.
Sector has avoided issue because of stigma fears, expert warns ahead of closure of Nottingham attacks inquiry
Mental health organisations have “failed to acknowledge” the risk of violence from a minority of people with severe mental illnesses, the chief executive of Mind has said ahead of the closure of the inquiry into the Nottingham attacks.
Dr Sarah Hughes, who has led mental health charity Mind for four years and has worked in the sector for almost four decades, said charities had shied away from addressing the risk of violence due to the fact it had increased the stigma and harassment around people with mental health conditions.
I was riding my pint x around some trails, got to a little climb with some roots at the top, so I tried going up, the nose caught a root and dug in and briefly spun then powered off. Now when I try to turn it back on the footpad light illuminates like it should for about half a second and then turns off. Also worth noting that yesterday it started raining while I was riding so the board did get wet but not enough that I’d think it would be the cause. I tried plugging it in and the charger won’t recognize it, I also tried holding the power button for 10-15 seconds and still nothing. I’m guessing my “brain” just bricked, if that’s the case I’m completely fresh to the modding world on these, but id be ok getting a non FM brain so if anyone has any suggestions or clarifications I’m all ears.
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to pause strikes on each other's capitals while U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner hold talks to revive peace efforts.
Possums in the roof, bats in the curtains and ducks on the balcony: new research has revealed how native animals are making themselves at home in our houses.
Researchers have analysed a decade of wildlife rescue reports and found brushtail and ringtail possums make up half of all cases of animals in buildings, followed by microbats and bare-nosed wombats.
Port authorities say access roads ‘free flowing’ again after large group forces road closures in both directions
Dozens of people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas blocked the road at the port of Dover in Kent, forcing closures in both directions on Saturday morning.
Kent police said they were were in attendance and engaging with the protest, which the Port of Dover described as a “public order incident”. No arrests were made during the incident. Responsibility for the demonstration appears to have been claimed by an anti-immigration group with links to the far right.
Fiery Diamond League comments partially walked back
On Hocker: ‘Cole and I talked it through after the race’
The double Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen has issued a part-apology for calling his rivals “losers” and a “bunch of cowards” after a spicy men’s 1500m Diamond League final on Friday.
However, Ingebrigtsen has continued to maintain that he was still right to accuse the Olympic 1500m champion Cole Hocker of cowardice – because he asked for a strong pace and swapped in his own pacemaker only to then hide behind others in the race.
Guyana is one of more than 30 nations that have now signed deals with the Trump administration as part of President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.
Leading second-wave feminist co-founded Women’s Media Center with Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem
Robin Morgan, a child star of the 1940s and 50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died. She was 85.
Morgan’s death was confirmed Saturday by the Women’s Media Center, an organization she co-founded with Jane Fonda and the celebrated author and activist Gloria Steinem, who died Wednesday.
Sarah Khalifa, 39, charged with forming organised criminal gang to manufacture and traffic drugs
An Egyptian court sentenced a well-known television presenter and 11 others to death for manufacturing and trafficking narcotics in a sprawling drug case, official media reported on Saturday.
The presenter, Sarah Khalifa, 39, is best known for her programme Mission Impossible, which dealt with issues concerning security and crime.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met with about 10 Palestinian American residents who described the impact of the violence on their lives and properties.
‘Sometimes we will get things wrong and get a bit of a kicking for it,’ party leader tells gathering in Birmingham
No real mention by Anderson of the problems that overshadowed events yesterday. He ended his opening speech saying: "Yesterday was great. Today is going to be absolutely brilliant.”
CNN reports that alcohol "may play a greater role in death from numerous types of cancers in the United States than previously known, according to a new study."
"While it's true that overall cancer mortality has declined, we found the percentage of cancer deaths proportionally attributable to alcohol rose over 58% in people 20 and older over the last 33 years," said the study's first author Dr. Chinmay Jani... It didn't take much alcohol to raise one's risk — about one standard drink a day, every day, Jani said. In the US, a standard drink is 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor...
Alcohol is ethanol or ethyl alcohol, which is broken down by the liver into acetaldehyde, a
"probable human carcinogen," the National Cancer Institute states on its website. While the liver will further break down acetaldehyde into a harmless molecule called acetate, the process isn't foolproof: acetaldehyde may damage DNA and interfere with DNA repair before conversion into acetate is complete. Alcohol also contributes to oxidative stress, which damages DNA, proteins and cell function and creates inflammation. Drinking alcohol also weakens the cells in the mouth and throat, making them more susceptible to carcinogens. That's even more likely to occur with smoking cigarettes, a major source of acetaldehyde. In addition, alcohol interferes with the break down and absorption of key nutrients thought to decrease cancer risk — vitamins A, C, D and E as well as folates in the vitamin B complex, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The study, which was published Monday in The Lancet Regional Health — Americas journal, analyzed more than three decades of US data gathered for the Global Burden of Disease Study. The GBD study is a massive scientific effort to measure health, mortality and disabilities from hundreds of risk factors, diseases and conditions in more than 200 countries and territories. Between 1990 and 2023, the total number of yearly alcohol-linked cancer deaths more than doubled, rising from 11,361 to 23,126 in the US.
Men and adults age 55 and older experienced the greatest impact; alcohol-related cancer mortality rate in older males climbed nearly 24% over the 33-year period. For men, liver cancer deaths showed the strongest link to alcohol, followed by esophageal and colorectal cancers. For women 55 and older, breast cancer was the top killer, followed by liver and colorectal cancers.
Reform UK leader maintains innocence in overseas funding controversy on last day of party conference
Nigel Farage has claimed that he “wasn’t even listening” during a meeting at the centre of a controversy about whether his party considered evading the law on accepting donations from overseas.
The Reform UK leader also claimed he knew donation law “better than anybody” during interviews as he sought to salvage the final day of his party conference from the fallout that has already cost him two of his closest aides.
Officials said US aircraft carrier and destroyer avoided attacks before three Iranian tankers were struck by the US
The US military said Saturday it struck three Iranian oil tankers after US navy warships came under missile attack, further escalating tensions in the region and warning it would “if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet”.
According to the military, a US aircraft carrier and destroyer avoided “multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks” while patrolling the region. No US personnel were injured.
Judge issues order as part of discovery process in lawsuit brought by non-profit into now defunct compensation fund
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reveal who set up the structure of a controversial $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund” to recompense victims of so-called political lawfare that was reportedly dropped by the justice department last month.
Ivan Davis, the US magistrate judge for the eastern district of Virginia, issued the order compelling discovery materials from the government as part of a lawsuit brought by the Democracy Forward non-profit on behalf of plaintiffs including a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest against an immigration raid in California.
Ryan Bridge, arrested this year on suspicion of religiously and racially aggravated harassment, says party invited him
The leader of a flag campaign group who was arrested on suspicion of causing religiously and racially aggravated harassment was given access to Reform UK’s annual conference.
Ryan Bridge, whose Raise the Colours group has put up hundreds of union and St George flags across England, told the Guardian he was invited to the conference.
MPs applaud PM’s ambition and optimism but John Healey has yet to show he can match leader’s radical perspective
Until now, Andy Burnham has been a lucky prime minister. In office for just over six weeks, no major domestic crisis derailed his plans over the summer, Reform has been on the back foot, and he arrived back at Westminster with his personal approval ratings soaring and optimism undampened.
But underneath the sense of relief that many Labour MPs are feeling that their high-stakes gamble of ousting Keir Starmer appears – for now – to have paid off, there is an unease that Burnham’s premiership is yet to make contact with economic reality.
Politicians on the right and left are pushing back against Flock as more Americans voice opposition to the tech
Growing factions from both sides of the political aisle in the US are pushing back against surveillance cameras made by a single company, a rare response in a sharply divided country with a president pushing an unwaveringly pro-tech agenda.
The bipartisan backlash against Flock Safety cameras resembles nationwide rage toward the construction of large datacenters that power artificial intelligence. Polling shows roughly 75% of Americans oppose new datacenter construction in their areas.
The painting was among the artworks looted and sold under duress to Nazi officials from art dealer Jacques Goudstikker after Adolf Hitler's Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940.
Houthi rebel offensive against government forces on west coast leads to some of deadliest clashes in years
Clashes between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel movement have killed more than 60 people, including civilians, as the Houthis pushed forward with a military offensive on Yemen’s western coast.
Twenty-six government troops and 31 Houthi fighters were killed during several hours of fighting in the country’s south-west on Saturday, medical and military sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP). A missile strike also killed six civilians and injured seven others travelling by bus in the city of Taiz.
I have a 7 yr old XR that finally bricked. I am thinking of the GT S. What are the community thoughts of the GT S vs the newer XR. I am in Florida, so no large hills.
The coastal community in California had already been devastated by landslides and wildfires before a fatal crash
California’s rugged Big Sur coastline is often called a slice of heaven, 120 miles (195km) of unspoiled rocky promontories, sandy beaches and redwood forests at the foot of the Santa Lucia mountains. This year, it has endured a long summer of hell.
Wildfires, road closures and repeated disruptions to the local hotel, restaurant and campsite businesses all have posed significant challenges in an era of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns. One large fire broke out in the highlands east of Big Sur in early August and is still less than 25% contained. A second fire erupted 30 miles to the south two weeks later and is so inaccessible to firefighters that it has grown bigger than the first and is barely contained at all.
Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said this week he's removing Flock cameras from state roadways. And according to a local news report, that led sheriff's departments in at least three other Florida counties to also "announce they're ending their own license plate reader programs." The same week in Texas, the Dallas Police Department announced it's also shutting down over 300 more Flock cameras, acccording to The Hill, after Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agencies to halt funding.
And in Wisconsin "at least a dozen" law enforcement agencies announced they'd suspend use of Flock's cameras, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, joining Wisconsin cities like Appleton, Oshkosh and Kenosha that also cancelled their Flock contracts. But this week's cancellations had a new reason:
Officials said it was revealed [Flock] had been collecting five years of traffic data, which had been stripped of identifying information, from cities' Flock cameras, and repackaging that as a traffic analytics product to sell to cities.
All said they supported the effectiveness of the technology in investigations, but cited losing faith in the company's trustworthiness. "This is not what we agreed to, and it is not what the public was led to believe," said Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling in a news release announcing the removal of Flock cameras operated by the agency. "The Sheriff's Office will not participate in a system that appears to use public safety as a justification for mass surveillance and the collection and monetization of information about innocent people...."
[Racine County] officials were told the company believed if it stripped the data of any identifiable nature, it was then considered to be the company's property and no longer the city's. [Lt. Michael Luell, the sheriff's public information officer] said the sheriff's office has outside attorneys, along with the county's attorneys, investigating the company's move. "Our contract, from my reading of it is, it stated they agreed not to distribute or sell our data," Luell told the Journal Sentinel. "But they had this legal theory."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot readers MAurelius and schwit1 for sharing the news.
The U.S. was the only country to vote against the U.N. resolution, which encourages the use of an “Equal Earth” map. The U.S. described it as a “radical ideological project.”
Labor Day cooking gets easier when every dish is not fighting for grill space. These 15 cookout recipes cover steak, kebabs, burgers, seafood, sides, oven backups, and grilled peaches for dessert.The post 15 grilling recipes that take Labor Day all…
District attorney must decide whether to retry case after jury’s failure to reach verdict despite hours of deliberation
Lindsay Clancy, prosecutors, defense lawyers, the judge and millions watching on are back where they started after her five-week trial over the murder of her three children ended in a mistrial.
America’s saddest case has ceased for the moment, but the legal wrangling is not over, and a second trial could now be on the horizon, prolonging and repeating an agonizing spectacle that has gripped America and the world.
Potlucks get repetitive fast. These 13 recipes mix chilled salads, creamy dip, baked pasta, cake, cookies, cornbread, smoked appetizers, and a Dutch oven stew so the table has more range.The post 13 potluck recipes my sister-in-law admitted she couldn’t recreate…
Todd Blanche’s remarks are part of a totally-not-invented moral panic that stretches the limits of the imagination
Being a public school teacher in the US these days is tough. You’ve got to pay for a lot of your own supplies, deal with smartphone-addicted children and perform gender-affirming surgeries on your lunch break.
Luckily our intrepid attorney general, Todd Blanche, is on the case. Blanche appeared on Fox News this week to decry a “pandemic” of gender transitions in schools across the US. “There’s not a parent in America, no matter where you live, that would want their school to change and call their child by a different name and not expect to be told about that. We partnered with the Department of Education recently to combat this very trend and, really, pandemic that’s happening in some school districts around the country,” Blanche said. He seemed more concerned with name changes than with surgery, but the president himself has suggested on several occasions that schools are furtively doing surgery on children. During a campaign speech in 2024, for example, Donald Trump said: “Can you imagine … your son leaves the house and you say: ‘Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation? Can you even imagine this?”
(Would not let me add the link, but its on printables. Lookup "onewheel fender" its the white one by kagman)
26 hour print and this is the end result. Overall sturdy, and perfect lineup for oem holes. Making the holders over the weekend and will update. There is minor imperfections but it cost me a measly 5 bucks too print so not the end of the world. Filament used is the flashforge petg with carbon fiber. If using the ender 3, set klipper speed to 70ish percent for the bottom layer because with supports it can get fast and sloppy. Also for those 3d printers out there, dont give me hate for having strapping tape to hold the bed plate🤣
Healthy middle-aged people deemed to be at higher risk of developing condition among those eligible to participate
People without memory loss will be offered an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that could stop the development of the condition before dementia symptoms emerge.
Healthy middle-aged people deemed to have a higher risk of developing the condition will be eligible to participate in the trial, which is being run by an NHS trust as part of an international clinical trial aiming to prevent dementia.
Activists are calling on the state attorney general to take action against hospitals that have ended gender-affirming care programs after Trump retook office
A group of trans activists from across Massachusetts brought their needles, hormone gels, pills and sharps containers to Boston on Wednesday to send a message to state attorney general Andrea Campbell.
Organizers with the youth-led group Protect Trans Futures (PTF) took their hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the lobby of her office building, then occupied the space, refusing to leave without a commitment to protect civil rights for trans kids.
Chancellor says he wants to ensure country has ‘buffer’ against uncertainty as global bond yields hit 18-year high
The chancellor has indicated that the UK will face a tough budget next month due to Trump’s war in the Middle East.
In an interview with the Financial Times, John Healey said the conflict in Iran would probably have a strong influence on his first budget on 28 October.
Chinese man at Trishuli hydropower project and Nepali woman in Nuwakot found 10 days into rescue operation
Emergency responders have rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal.
The Nepali military said on Saturday a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried out of the tunnel.
Some of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. military were subjected to polygraph tests as part of a sweeping leak probe, U.S. officials briefed on the matter told CBS News.
Seven aid workers killed in an airstrike in Gaza were marked as targets under an Israeli military practice of establishing guilt by association, a Guardian investigation shows.
A top Israeli military prosecutor announced last month that he would not pursue criminal proceedings for the April 2024 incident in which drones fired missiles at three clearly marked World Central Kitchen (WCK) cars soon after they had escorted a food aid delivery to Gaza. Three British humanitarian workers along with an Australian, a Palestinian, a Pole and a dual US-Canadian national were killed.
The ‘hip boost’ aims to create hourglass silhouette, much like Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand’s padded shorts
For decades shapewear has been used to compress and cinch. But now there is a sub-genre emerging. Rather than shrinking a silhouette, it aims to add inches.
This week M&S launched a bodysuit that features exaggerated padding at the hip allowing the wearer to create an hourglass shape, or at least the illusion of one.
Security experts fear Putin may be winning hybrid war with the west amid rise of pro-Kremlin, far-right parties
Defence planners working with Nato fear that if war broke out with Russia, Europe could not currently sustain a prolonged war of attrition owing to a public lack of war readiness, a conference on the future of European military coordination heard this week.
The pessimism reflects concern that Russia may be winning a so-called hybrid war with Europe, weakening the options available to Nato war planners in the event of military conflict.
A storm lasting about 30 minutes wreaked $18m in damage and left tens of thousands without power in the US city
The storm that hit the Memphis, Tennessee, area on 22 August lingered for only about half an hour. But the destruction it left was lasting: $18m in damages, fallen trees and more than 100,000 people without power.
Amber Sherman was one of the east Memphis residents who lost power, but her first thoughts were of her neighbors. “My main thought was that the power’s going to be out for a while and people aren’t prepared for that and it’s very hot outside,” Sherman, a coordinator for Black Voters Matter (BVM) in Memphis, said. Days after the storm, a series of rain showers and thunderstorms known as a bow echo storm, the high in Memphis was 91F (32.8C). Tens of thousands of households were still without power.
Atlanta’s Bradley Carlisle first played Kris Kringle for kids with Down syndrome before completing elite Santa school
After recently gaining recognition as the first professional Santa Claus with Down syndrome in the US, Bradley Carlisle has already gotten a lot more than the traditional serving of milk and cookies that is usually left out for Father Christmas each year.
That is because the 37-year-old community theater actor from suburban Atlanta landed an honorary induction into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame upon completing one of the largest Christmas performer schools in the US in late August – a distinction meant to recognize the important representation his emergence on the holiday scene has brought, according to his supporters.
Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, says Home Office refused visa application despite Maryam having cancer
A man living in the UK has said he believes his sister-in-law who died from cancer in Gaza would still be alive today if the Home Office had agreed to bring her and her family to Britain.
Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, fled Gaza in 2020 and was granted refugee status in the UK in 2021. After the destruction of large areas of Gaza by Israeli forces following the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, he applied to bring his brother Hassan, Hassan’s wife, Maryam, their two young children and other family members to the UK in October 2025. He said the Home Office rejected their application.
Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior describes 2022 meeting in new book as ex-leader’s son vies with Lula for presidency
The far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro was in his final days as Brazil’s president when, six weeks after losing the election and still refusing to recognise the result, he summoned the heads of the armed forces to a meeting.
The defence minister, Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, took out a document from a plastic folder and handed copies to the commanders of the navy, army and air force.
The US defense secretary faces internal dissent and discord at the Pentagon, accused of focusing on culture war issues and his own political ambitions as the Iran war drags on
In a different Washington, under a different president, a return to the well-worn playbook of all-out sanctions to counter Iran might have been the signal for a publicity-hungry US secretary of defense to adopt a lower profile.
But these are no ordinary times. And Pete Hegseth is no ordinary defense secretary.
Exclusive: court orders seen by Guardian show agency given approval to fit Texas detainee with tube without his consent
Federal immigration officials quietly received permission from a judge in recent weeks to force-feed a detained Cuban hunger striker inside a Texas detention center, including with the use of a rare, nonconsensual surgical procedure, court records reveal.
The man is likely the 19th hunger striker in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention where the agency has had an application approved to conduct “involuntary medical procedures” since January 2025. The rising number of cases under the second Trump administration has alarmed advocates amid wide-ranging accusations of mistreatment inside facilities nationwide.
Left-wing Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has a proposal to shield her country from Donald Trump’s growing influence over Latin American politics: changing the constitution to bar dual nationals from running for president or governor of any Mexican state.
“A Mexican president is Mexican and does not represent another country,” Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference on August 25. If adopted, her proposal would make Mexico’s presidency qualifications in some respects more restrictive than those of the United States, where a president must be born in the country but there is no explicit ban on dual citizenship.
Sheinbaum’s proposal marks the latest in a suite of changes that her critics deem authoritarian. In May, for example, Sheinbaum gave the National Electoral Institute, Mexico’s highest electoral authority, the power to annul presidential elections deemed to have been influenced by foreign actors.
But Sheinbaum argues the reforms are necessary to stave off the growing influence of the far right in Latin America, where now two heads of state — Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa — are also U.S. citizens.
De la Espriella, the far-right Colombian president who received strong support from Trump during his campaign and took office in June, is a U.S. and Italian citizen and a registered member of the Republican Party. Noboa, who assumed office as Ecuador’s president in 2023 at the age of 35, was born in Miami, Florida, and is the son of one of Ecuador’s richest men. (His father, Álvaro Noboa, also ran unsuccessfully for president five times.)
It’s clear that Latin America has an ascendant right wing under U.S. influence, said Pamela K. Starr, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California. Morena, the party that Sheinbaum leads, genuinely seems to believe there’s an international far-right movement that has taken over most of Latin America and that efforts to weaken Mexico’s left-wing political leadership come from Washington. How Mexican observers view Sheinbaum’s protectionism, meanwhile, is something of a political Rorschach test.
“Those who trust her trust that her efforts are legitimate, that she’s not trying to establish authoritarianism,” Starr told The Intercept. “Those who oppose her have the exact opposite read: that this is simply an extension of the Fourth Transformation’s effort to recreate an authoritarian government in Mexico. The truth obviously is somewhere in between.”
The Fourth Transformation is the political project launched by former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the founder of the Morena party who swept to the presidency in 2018 promising to break with Mexico’s political establishment, reduce inequality, and root out corruption. López Obrador cast his movement as a historic transformation of the country, and his successor, Sheinbaum, has pledged to protect it.
Her strategy raises an uncomfortable question inside Mexico: whether measures designed to shield the country from foreign political influence could themselves be used to consolidate Morena’s power.
“I don’t think it is an absurd idea,” said Damián Zepeda, the former president of Mexico’s conservative party PAN, of Sheinbaum’s proposed dual-citizenship ban. “But we cannot lose sight of the context of the authoritarian government we are living under.”
“What is being done is protecting Mexico from leaders who would sell out their own country.”
For Cynthia López Castro, a Morena senator, the initiative seems fundamental. The logic behind it is that someone who holds dual nationality has a legal bond with another state, López Castro said, while whoever holds the presidency can only represent the Mexican people.
“What is being done is protecting Mexico from leaders who would sell out their own country,” said López Castro, who told The Intercept that the measure was discussed in parliament this week. “President Claudia Sheinbaum argues that dual nationality is incompatible with serving as president or governor because these positions require exclusive representation.”
Sheinbaum’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
There are people within and around the U.S. administration who see Sheinbaum’s government as hostile to American interests and are seeking to see Mexico governed by conservatives, Starr said. The irony, she added, is that “the United States has never, literally never, had such good security cooperation from Mexico.”
The State Department and U.S. military are highly supportive of the Mexican president because of the level of security cooperation her government has provided Washington.
“There are two messages coming out of the United States, and Donald Trump just depends on what day it is, which side he apes in his rhetoric,” Starr said.
Framing Sheinbaum’s proposal as an authoritarian measure, Zepeda, the conservative, also presented it as an attack on a critical target for the Trump administration: the rights of millions of Mexican immigrants.
“A great deal of progress has been made on the migration agenda to recognize the rights of our fellow Mexicans abroad, and this proposal would prevent anyone who was born in the United States because of their family’s migration circumstances from aspiring to certain public offices,” Zepeda said. “It is a double narrative: On the one hand, we support migrants, and on the other, we restrict their rights in order to protect those in power.”
In Starr’s view, while the U.S. president is clearly an influential force, he’s inflating his own role in Latin American politics.
“There’s no question that Trump thinks that he has created a conservative coalition in Latin America, and it supports him. He’s right that it supports him, but he’s not right that he created it,” Starr said. “Latin Americans are voting on Latin American concerns.”
A new study offers more evidence that America’s biggest sport produces life-altering head trauma. The NFL will never turn itself off, so it’s on fans to do so
As a new NFL season begins this Wednesday, the danger of America’s most-watched sport has never been more clear.
A new and widely circulated study published in the British Medical Journal examined the donated brains of former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 and compared them with the overall number of players who died during that period. Of the 235 donated brains in that period, 215 had evidence of the degenerative brain condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). That group of 215 comprised 24.5% of the former players who died during that period in total. Given the finding, the study’s authors estimate that the prevalence of CTE among players who died in that period was at minimum 24.5% to a maximum of 97.7%, with the actual rate likely somewhere in between.
Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Derek Silva is Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at King’s University College at Western University.
In Virginia’s Franklin County, Henry Law made the switch from illicit moonshine production to commercial sales. Sometimes, he said, he misses the chase.
A member of the Coastal Elite Lacrosse Club in action. Photo courtesy of BPG Sports Lacrosse Media Team.
The sports management firm, BPG Sports, of Buccini Pollin Group announced the acquisition of the Coastal Lacrosse Academy in a press release, September 2. The group also entered into management agreements with three other youth sports programs.
Buccini Pollin Group’s sports management firm, BPG Sports, announced the firm is acquiring the Coastal Lacrosse Academy and entering into “long-term management agreements” with three other youth sports programs in a press release on September 2. The three programs involved in the management agreements are the Bagel Bombers baseball program, Lady Bombers softball program and Delmarva Rush Soccer Club.
Coastal Lacrosse Academy and Delmarva Rush Soccer Club will be rebranded into the Coastal Elite Lacrosse Club and Henlopen Recreational Soccer, according to the press release.
BPG Sports’ acquisition of Coastal Elite Lacrosse Club adds to its youth lacrosse portfolio that includes the BPG Nationals, Brotherly Love Lacrosse Club, Duke’s Elite Lacrosse Club and the Phantom Girls Lacrosse program. BPG Sports will serve over 1,000 lacrosse players across the Mid-Atlantic region following the acquisition of Coastal Elite Lacrosse Club, according to the press release.
“These transactions reflect exactly what BPG Sports was built to do – bring the top clubs, coaches, and venues under one roof and give young athletes a best-in-class experience,” senior vice president and general manager of BPG Sports, Steve Cavalier, said via the press release. “Each of these organizations has built a fantastic local reputation, and our goal is to strengthen what they’ve achieved, invest in their players and facilities, and enhance the experience for all.”
BPG Sports’ management of Henlopen Recreational Soccer adds to its club soccer portfolio that includes The Sporting Athletic Club and its New Jersey and Pennsylvania affiliates, Sporting Athletic Club PA and Sporting Athletic Club NJ.
BPG Sports’ management of the Bagel Bombers and Lady Bombers are the firm’s first baseball and softball programs. BPG Sports will take over the day-to-day operations as well as the management of the two programs, according to the press release.
In total, BPG Sports has a portfolio of 11 different programs across four different sports that serve 4,500 athletes and their families, according to the press release.
To learn more about BPG Sports, its club programs and its facilities click here to view the company’s website.
Scale of deportations made public for first time amid criticism of hardline approach to UK citizens
Sweden has confirmed 458 British citizens have been deported or forcibly removed by police since Brexit.
It is the first time the scale of the deportations of citizens who failed to secure residency in Sweden post-Brexit has been made public and comes amid mounting criticism of a cruel and hardline approach to Britons who had chosen to make the country their home before Brexit.
Progressive candidates navigate their ties to the DSA as the group faces historic growth and mounting pressure
Days before he won the Democratic primary for a US Senate seat in Michigan, insurgent newcomer Abdul El-Sayed was asked whether he was concerned about being labeled a “socialist”.
“I’d rather think of myself as a capitalist who has actually read about capitalism,” El-Sayed told CBS News anchor Ed O’Keefe. “I’m not a socialist.”
Former champion struggles badly after 762-day layoff
Ruiz, 36, insists another title run remains possible
Andy Ruiz Jr’s comeback bid was left in tatters on Friday night after the former unified heavyweight champion was knocked down and picked apart in a sobering unanimous-decision defeat to Damian Knyba in Newark, New Jersey.
Knyba won by scores of 117-110 and 114-113 twice, handing Ruiz the third defeat of his professional career and dealing a devastating blow to his hopes of becoming a two-time champion in boxing’s prestige division. The baffling pair of 114-113 cards flattered Ruiz considerably and bore little relation to the mostly one-way traffic that unfolded. (The Guardian had it 117-110.)
Citing researchers published Friday, Ars Technica writes that AI agents "posted 18,000 messages to a public wiki that discussed ways for other agents to bypass security sandbox restrictions."
Reuters attributes the discussion to "a swarm of rogue OpenAI agents" that "hijacked a German website this spring and transformed it into a bulletin board for other AI agents, according to new research published Friday and two people familiar with the matter."
OpenAI officials learned of the incident weeks ago but kept it under wraps as executives grappled with the fallout from the July breach of the open source repository Hugging Face, the people said.
The episode, which began in May and has not previously been reported, underscores growing tension within the AI industry. Companies are racing to build increasingly autonomous agents capable of carrying out complex, valuable tasks, yet evidence is mounting that those systems may also learn to bend rules, exploit loopholes and coordinate with one another in ways developers neither anticipated nor intended. During the Hugging Face breach, OpenAI agents autonomously plotted a digital heist that went undetected for more than a week, intensifying concerns OpenAI is sacrificing safety to push the AI frontier. Its failure to disclose the May incident may revive questions about its oversight...
The German incident reflects a broader pattern of AI activity that some OpenAI investigators wanted to scrutinize more closely. But efforts to widen the probe met resistance from others inside OpenAI, including legal advisers, according to four people familiar with the matter. "Claims that our legal team discouraged investigation of the incident are false," the OpenAI spokesperson said...
The researchers said public server logs indicated much of the activity originated from Microsoft Azure infrastructure, which OpenAI sometimes uses. They also observed repeated visits to the site by OpenAI employees after the episode, a pattern they said strongly suggested the agents and the company were linked. Messages reviewed by the researchers showed agents plotting ways to evade detection, use tools such as Tor and preserve communications even after they had been shut down. When the site's moderator began deleting pages in June, the agents responded by creating backup pages to dodge the cleanup.
Reuters got this reaction from Maurice Chiodo, an academic at Cambridge University's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. "The episode, he said, should reinforce growing concerns that the greatest threat from advanced AI may not be a single superintelligent system, but 'vast colluding swarms of semi-intelligent AI.'"
A spate of serious safety incidents have increased fears about the power and impenetrability of the most advanced models
Picture humanity in a boat being swept down a raging river, praying there is no Niagara Falls ahead. Or imagine standing with the pioneering physicists in 1942 before they triggered the first self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction beneath a Chicago stadium.
These were two of the analogies used this week by Prof Robert Trager, an expert in the nascent field of AI governance, to describe the perilous but potential-filled moment the world stands at with accelerating artificial intelligence.
Just wondering if the two are compatible? Or do I need special fenders to go with the wtf rails? Really hoping I can still somehow use my carbon fiber one
EDIT: Reading now they probably won't work, is there any way to make an adapter or I'm out of luck?
Workers who blame algorithms for lowering their earnings are getting help from academics to find out how the system works
Gig economy workers are urging delivery platforms to open up the “black box” of computer-driven algorithms that determine the jobs they are offered and how much they are paid, blaming increased use of AI for lowering wages.
A group of food delivery riders in Edinburgh say their rates of pay have fallen and their working conditions have deteriorated at the same time as Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat, the three dominant gig economy platforms in the UK and Ireland, have increased their use of automation.
Paris, Kentucky — Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin was arrested Thursday while working as an extra on a movie set after authorities acted on an outstanding bench warrant tied to a child support dispute.
Bevin, a Republican who served as governor from 2015 to 2019, was taken into custody in Bourbon County and later transported to the Jefferson County jail in Louisville.
Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson had issued the warrant after Bevin repeatedly failed to provide financial records and appear for hearings involving child support for his adopted son, Jonah Bevin. The requested documents included information about Bevin’s income, bank accounts and tax returns.
Johnson previously wrote that Bevin had shown “complete disregard and utter disrespect” for the court. On Friday, she ordered him to serve 60 days in jail for contempt.
The arrest reportedly occurred while Bevin was appearing as an extra in a Christmas movie being filmed at a Bourbon County horse farm.
Bevin has previously argued that the judge appeared focused on finding a reason to jail him, while attorneys representing his son have said the case demonstrates that no one is above court orders.
The underlying child support dispute remains unresolved, with the court still considering the broader financial issues in the case.
American duo lose 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(7) to Maya Joint and Chan Hao-ching
Serena and Venus crash out of women’s doubles in first round
In the end, after so much toil and admirable fight, defeat came swiftly for one of the greatest doubles teams to ever share a tennis court. Upon their return to prime time in New York, Venus and Serena Williams fought desperately to overturn the various deficits they found themselves in over three hours inside a thunderous Arthur Ashe Stadium.
They came close. The Williams sisters had clawed their way back into the match after trailing a 1-4 in their final set against Chan Hao-ching and Maya Joint, and they established a 5-0 lead in the third set tie-break. Just as they appeared to be on the verge of victory, they were brushed aside, losing 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (7) in the first round of the US Open.
Raleigh, North Carolina — A federal judge has ruled that former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can be sued in North Carolina under the state’s unusual “alienation of affection” law over her admitted romantic relationship with a married member of her security detail.
The lawsuit was filed by Heather Ammel, whose former husband, Matthew Ammel, worked on Sinema’s security team and later in her Senate office and campaign. She alleges Sinema knowingly pursued him while the couple still had “a good and loving marriage.”
Sinema acknowledged in a deposition that the relationship became sexual in May 2024 during a trip to Napa, California, and continued in several other states. She argued that North Carolina courts lacked jurisdiction because the alleged sexual encounters did not occur there.
U.S. District Judge David A. Bragdon rejected that argument, finding that nine text messages Sinema sent to Ammel while he was physically in North Carolina were enough to establish jurisdiction.
North Carolina is one of only a handful of states that still recognize alienation-of-affection claims, which allow a spouse to seek damages from a third party accused of helping destroy a marriage.
The ruling does not determine whether Sinema is liable. It only allows the case to move forward in North Carolina. Sinema’s attorney did not immediately comment on the decision.
Irish boxer lauded for her tenacity and inspiration before her last fight in front of 80,000 people at Croke Park
WhenKatie Taylor steps into the ring on Saturday night to defend her titles and once again enthral Ireland, there will be a bittersweet tinge. After a singular career that pioneered women’s boxing, the super-lightweight champion and Olympic gold medallist is bowing out. She is 40 and it is to be her final bout.
“The end of an era, isn’t it?” said Trevor McMahon, her brother-in-law and founder of a gym where she trains. “It’ll be an amazing night but it’ll also be a little bit sad. Everything she did, it might not ever be achieved again.”
Inverse shares a movie success story from last weekend:
Coyote vs. Acme debuted to $15.9 million at the box office, beating out iconic director Ridley Scott's latest sci-fi adventure, The Dog Stars. This success has only continued since, and the worldwide box office currently sits above $22 million. Strong reviews and word-of-mouth are sure to keep viewers coming in, especially during the holiday weekend.
What's impressive is Coyote vs. Acme had a limited marketing campaign that includes viral stunts. They photographed the movie's world premiere with a vintage Tasmanian Devil polaroid camera, and launched a phone number for the law firm suing Acme. ("If you've been injured by an enormous rubber band, press 7. If you've been injured by painted train tunnel that suddenly sprang to life, press 8...")
And Cartoon Brew reports that Wednesday "the famously silent Looney Tunes star participated in an AMA on Reddit's r/movies, answering questions about his career, his relationship with the Road Runner, and the Warner Bros. executive who nearly prevented audiences from seeing his latest movie."
In keeping with tradition, Wile E. delivered his responses through images of himself holding signs. The format produced several interesting and occasionally thought-provoking exchanges, but one obvious highlight came when a user asked: "Rumor has it that David Zaslav was paid off by ACME to cancel your film; what is your opinion on this?" Wile E.'s response was an image of the coyote glaring at the camera while holding a sign that read, "It's a limited number of signs," pulled from a scene in the film when Mr. Coyote first meets his eventual attorney Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte.
Meanwhile, Boing Boing cites local news reports that a Southern California bird watcher Alexander DeBarros has actually captured a photo of a coyote holding a roadrunner bird in its mouth:
In an incredible coincidence that is a movie publicist's dream, he snapped the rare, possibly unprecedented, photo on the opening weekend of the movie Acme vs. Coyote... In an even more incredible coincidence, DeBarros's father, Brian Mainolfi, is an animator whose first job in the field was working for Chuck Jones, the creator and director of the Roadrunner cartoon series.
Cartoon Brew notes a Reddit user specifically asked the Coyote for his reaction to the news.
Wile E. responded with some unexpectedly healthy advice: "We cannot judge our worth on the work of others."
Aftermath calls the movie "a well made, deeply funny movie that pays a deep respect to the Looney Tunes in a way that Warner Brothers currently seems uninterested in doing."
Washington, D.C. — The Pentagon reportedly subjected about 50 members of the Joint Staff to polygraph examinations in August as part of an effort to identify officials suspected of leaking sensitive information to journalists.
The New York Times reported that the tests followed a series of stories about depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles during the ongoing war with Iran, including shortages of long-range precision missiles and Patriot interceptors. Mediaite independently summarized the Times report Friday night.
The Joint Staff employs roughly 1,500 to 2,000 people, meaning the examinations targeted only a small portion of the organization.
Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell declined to discuss specific personnel or investigative matters but said the Pentagon takes leaks of classified national security information “extremely seriously” and investigates them accordingly.
The move marks an escalation in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s long-running campaign against unauthorized disclosures. Hegseth previously threatened polygraph testing after reporting surfaced in 2025 that the Pentagon was preparing to brief Elon Musk on U.S. military planning involving China. According to earlier reporting, Hegseth later confronted then-acting Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady while searching for the source of that leak.
The latest leak investigation comes as reports of shrinking munitions reserves have raised questions about U.S. military readiness during the prolonged Iran conflict.
The Pentagon has not publicly identified any employee disciplined or removed as a result of the August polygraph examinations.
Playing together at the U.S. Open in New York for the first time in four years, Serena and Venus Williams lost in a three-set thriller match in the first round of the women's doubles tournament.
Australian returns on AU$4.9m contract after season on sidelines
Former No 1 pick hopes to reignite basketball career with fourth club
Australian former No 1 overall draft pick Ben Simmons has taken a significant step towards resurrecting his NBA career, agreeing a one-year deal with the Sacramento Kings.
The Melbourne-born guard returns on a US$3.5m (AU$4.9m) contract after sitting out the entire 2025-26 campaign while rehabilitating back and leg injuries that have hampered him in recent years.
President Trump threatened in a social media post on Friday to stop trade with some countries unless the US Federal Reserve moves to cut interest rates.
Trump cited August’s strong jobs report as sufficient justification to lower rates, and warned that, if the central bank didn’t go along, he’d halt trade between the US and any nations with which it maintains a trade deficit.
Ruling allows defense department to proceed for now in exerting greater editorial control over military news outlet
A federal judge has declined to stop the Pentagon from firing journalists who say they were illegally punished for speaking out about the need for the Stars and Stripes publication to maintain its editorial independence.
The ruling by US district judge Trevor McFadden allows the Pentagon to proceed for now in exerting greater editorial control over the historically independent military news outlet.
I have a GTS with about 2,700 miles on it, and I'm looking to sell it. Do you know of a good marketplace to sell it in?
I'm here in the South Los Angeles area, and it's in really good condition. I ride it all the time still (1-2 times a week), but I'm thinking about moving up to one of the long-range models. Now that my legs are strong I can ride for more than 2 hrs.
I’m thinking I want to get about $1700, this one needs a new tire soon.
I have had a XR+ for a while now, bought it used and it currently has 3,500 miles. I feel like the battery is probably on its way out, so I want to upgrade the powertrain. Currently have Kush Hi, TFL bumpers, and flight fins. It looks like a full tilt systems 20s2p pack and XRV kit will run me around $1,000.
I noticed that the ADV2 is currently on sale as well, for $1,699 ($1,850 after shipping + pro rails) and was also thinking about just getting that. Honestly, money is definitely a factor here, I do think I could sell my XR+ to close the gap a bit however. I'm not sure how the ADV2 rides, I really like how the XR+ feels, although it can be wobbly at times. The atom also looks really interesting, but I'm not sure how I'd like the smaller board.
Just looking for any advice on what I should do, upgrade the parts, get the ADV2 or just stick with what I have.
Two senior aides to Nigel Farage, the firebrand leader of the U.K.'s populist Reform party, have stepped down in the wake of an investigative news report.
Indira Talwani’s ruling presents major setback for president as first states begin to send out mail ballots for midterms
A federal judge on Friday again blocked Donald Trump’s executive order to impose sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting, the latest in a legal back-and-forth playing out less than two months before election day.
US district court judge Indira Talwani initially placed a temporary order blocking the president’s mandate and has now extended that prohibition with a stronger preliminary injunction. The ruling comes hours after North Carolina became the first state to start sending out mail-in ballots for the 3 November midterm elections.
Interior department given three months to decide whether wolves can be removed from endangered species list
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday directing the interior department to consider de-listing gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act and to contemplate whether the agency could make it easier to authorize killing them.
The order gives interior secretary Doug Burgum three months to determine whether gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves have recovered enough for the federal government to de-list them.
When a mother posted a note on Facebook asking if anyone in her neighborhood would allow her son to trick-or-treat at their homes in July for his 11th birthday, more than 100 neighbors said yes.
The mistrial in the case of the 36-year-old Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her three children sets up the possibility of another trial in a matter that has sown division and drawn attention to postpartum mental health.
The Supreme Court left in place guidance from the Federal Communications Commission that allows political parties and committees access to cheaper rates for political ads.
A federal judge extended her block on the U.S. Postal Service's new requirements for mail voting, as states prepare to begin sending mail ballots to voters for the November midterm elections.
The Pentagon accused two of the Stars and Stripes journalists of insubordination after one of them had told "CBS Sunday Morning" in a July interview that she worked for Stars and Stripes, "not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker."
IBM has made its Nighthawk r2 quantum processor available through the IBM Quantum Platform, with a new qubit-reset architecture that the company says delivers up to 25 times the circuit throughput of its Heron systems. The 120-qubit processor can execute more than 100,000 circuits per second, according to IBM.
Previous generations of IBM processors, including Heron, use conditional reset, which measures a qubit and applies a pulse when needed to return it to the ground state. Because the procedure is limited by measurement fidelity and cannot reset qubits that have leaked outside the computational states, the system must also remain idle for hundreds of microseconds between circuit executions.
IBM says Nighthawk r2 is capable of executing more than 100,000 circuits per second.
Nighthawk r2 instead pairs each programmable qubit with a dedicated reset element that connects it to a cold environment through a tunable coupler, drawing away its energy. IBM said this changes the qubit’s effective T1 energy-decay time from a median of about 200 microseconds to roughly 25 nanoseconds. That faster energy dissipation helps reduce the overall idle interval between circuit executions to as little as one microsecond.
Although Nighthawk r2 has the same 120 programmable qubits as its predecessor, it contains more supporting hardware. Its 120 qubits are accompanied by 218 couplers and 120 independently controlled reset elements, for a total of 458 physical quantum elements. Nighthawk r1 has the same qubit and coupler counts but lacks the dedicated reset elements, giving it 338 physical quantum elements.
IBM said the active-reset capability reduces initialization error by approximately 25 times while maintaining Heron-class gate fidelity and leaving neighboring qubits undisturbed.
The 25-fold increase in circuit throughput does not necessarily translate into an equivalent speedup for every workload. In early testing, IBM reports runtime improvements of as much as 10 times on research circuits without a loss of accuracy.
The company also used Nighthawk r2 to estimate observables on circuits containing more than 7,500 gates with probabilistic error amplification, meeting a target on its 2026 quantum roadmap. IBM separately said the processor’s higher throughput enabled a 12-fold speedup on a neutron-scattering simulation, generating spectra for comparison with experimental data in approximately 60 seconds.
Nighthawk r2’s reset capability can also be used during circuit execution. This allows auxiliary qubits to be measured, reset and reused within dynamic circuits, a capability needed for many quantum error-detection and error-correction experiments.
IBM said this could provide researchers with greater flexibility when testing protocols that introduce logical qubits into workloads. The company is positioning Nighthawk r2 as both a platform for near-term application research and a testbed for developing error-corrected quantum operations.
Why Should Delaware Care? More than half of all residents rely on Delmarva Power to provide electric service to their homes and businesses. A pending rate case could increase monthly bill costs, and the utility is seeking to recoup some of those costs sooner.
Delmarva Power filed a legal appeal in a Delaware court on Friday afternoon, seeking to overturn regulators’ cuts to its interim rate hike – a move that, if successful, could raise customers’ bills faster than expected.
The appeal was reportedly filed in Delaware Superior Court, the company said. It came just hours before the court closed for the Labor Day holiday weekend, despite the Public Service Commission (PSC) approving the interim rate schedule on Aug. 5.
The legal basis for the company’s appeal was not readily available with the courts now closed until Tuesday morning.
Delmarva Power Region President Marcus Beal told the Daily State News on Friday, however, that the utility sought to exclude a temporary price hike known as a Distribution System Improvement Charge from the PSC’s calculations. He was unavailable to speak to Spotlight Delaware on Friday evening.
The PSC, a five-member appointed body that oversees Delaware’s regulated utilities and rules on their expansions and investment returns, further cut interim rate hikes for Delmarva Power after the company voluntarily reduced its initial request by about a third.
In a Friday statement, the electric utility, which serves about 300,000 customers across all of New Castle County and parts of Kent and Sussex counties, said that the PSC’s decision “departed from Delaware statute by arbitrarily reducing the company’s interim rate further.”
The utility and its rate case – the third rate hike sought in five years by Delmarva to recoup the costs of its infrastructure investments in recent years – have become a bipartisan target for criticism as energy costs have skyrocketed in the last two years.
Dozens of customers decried the rate hike request during a two-hour public comment hearing two weeks ago that was marred by technical difficulties. A second hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 23.
“We understand that higher energy bills are a concern for our customers, and we do not take any increase lightly. That is why we continue to work with policymakers and other stakeholders on efforts to address rising costs, including energy supply prices. We also remain committed to balancing affordability with our responsibility to provide the safe and reliable service our customers depend on every day,” said Matt Ford, a spokesman for Delmarva Power, in a statement.
Where does the rate case stand?
Regulated utilities like Delmarva Power make money by recouping the costs of infrastructure upgrades — plus up to 10% profit — through electric rate increases.
In January, Delmarva Power filed its third rate hike request in five years because of recent infrastructure upgrades.
The utility has argued those upgrades, which range from substation improvements to line maintenance, are necessary to keep customers powered through issues, such as recent thunderstorms that left thousands powerless in the Wilmington area.
The debate over whether to approve that request is still ongoing. But while it happens, utilities can temporarily increase consumer costs to make sure the company can pay for those upgrades without borrowing too much money.
If the PSC ultimately decides the infrastructure upgrades were not necessary, customers would be refunded for that temporary rate increase.
Delmarva Power initially asked for $44.6 million in new revenue from base rates, as well as moving $23.2 million from a temporary price hike known as a Distribution System Improvement Charge into the base rate, making those costs permanently higher for customers.
That request, totaling $68.6 million, would have raised the electric bill of an average user by $6.42 per month, or 4.13%, according to Delmarva.
But after political pressure, the utility voluntarily lowered the total interim request in July to $45.9 million, with escalation factors that would kick in at seven and 12 months following their approval in conjunction with recent state legislation that aimed to lower the temporary costs for consumers.
Instead, the PSC rejected that plan and approved an interim rate that would start at $34.3 million – or half of the utility’s original request.
At debate is whether Delmarva Power’s movement of the Distribution System Improvement Charge should be factored into the calculations – regulators and the Delaware Public Advocate, who represents the collective interests of consumers, argue yes, while the utility says no.
Throughout their July negotiations, Delmarva Power lawyers warned that they felt the regulators were overstepping their authority to drive down interim rates.
Commissioner Regina Iorii, who was recently appointed to the PSC by Gov. Matt Meyer, told the utility, “If you don’t like it, appeal it.”
On Friday, it did.
And to make matters more dramatic for consumers, the utility filed an update to its request earlier this week that increases its total request to $75.6 million, or about 10%. It would be the largest single rate case increase in state history, if ultimately approved.
This came by way of a statutory filing known as a “12+0 filing,” which draws on true fiscal year-end costs as of July 1 rather than projections.
If that total requests hold in the rate case, the average Delmarva Power customer monthly bill would rise about $8, or 5%, before the cost of power is accounted for.
“At a time when energy affordability is a real concern for Delaware families, the Public Advocate believes this larger request warrants serious scrutiny. Delawareans should not be asked to pay more on their electric bills to increase the profits of a billion-dollar corporate holding company and its shareholders. The Public Advocate will rigorously review this case and oppose any amounts that are unjust, unreasonable, or imprudent,” Public Advocate Jameson Tweedie wrote on Facebook after the filing update.
Appeal raises the stakes
As Delmarva Power has increasingly entered the crosshairs of the Meyer administration, it has sought to shift the conversation to energy generation, which makes up the vast majority of a consumer’s energy bill.
Beal, Delmarva’s region president, called into Gov. Matt Meyer’s monthly radio show on Aug. 27 to confront him live on air about the issue, asking whether the governor would support reforms to state regulations that prohibit the utility’s ability to own its own power generation.
Beal noted that the average Delmarva Power customer’s bill has risen about $28 since January 2024, and 90% of that cost was tied to energy market prices that have been rising nationwide due to rising demand, spurred in part by data centers, and falling supply.
If the company could invest in its own generation, it could help spur greater supply and potentially lower supply costs to consumers, but historically regulators have been wary of giving to much power over its market to a single monopoly company.
Meyer said that his team was reviewing the proposal, but countered that transmission costs, which are requested by Delmarva Power and approved by regulators, have also outpaced inflation for the last five years. The governor asked Beal live on air to drop their looming rate hike request before he’d entertain conversations about power generation.
Beal demurred.
When asked whether a compromise could be brokered, Meyer rejected it.
“I don’t know what middle ground there is … They came to the Public Service Commission asking that they get profits on this rate case of 10.5%. No-risk profit. You tell me anyone who can do anything getting 10.5% profit, no risk,” he said. “I’m not going to do that for Delaware.”
When reached late Friday afternoon by Spotlight Delaware, Meyer reiterated his frustrations with Delaware’s largest electric distributor.
“While Delmarva keeps telling us affordability matters, they push every day for higher rates for Delaware families. We cannot continue to pay outrageous bills to keep our lights on. Delmarva wants to make this an issue about reliability, but it is really only about increasing their multimillion-dollar profits,” he said in a statement.
I dropped the valve stem into the hub 🤦😭 ain't no way I'm getting this one back right?
Might I mess anything up if I just slap a new valve stem in there and ride it with it rattling around till the next tire change? Or do I need to take the whole mamajama apart 😬
UD running back Kaderris Roberts runs down the right sideline in the Fightin’ Blue Hens, 42-7, win over Merrimack. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
The University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (1-0) defeated the Merrimack Warriors (0-2), 42-7, in their season opener, September 3.
NEWARK, DE — The University of Delaware’s second FBS season started in dominant fashion with a 42-7 win over Merrimack, Thursday night. The win was the Blue Hens eighth consecutive season opening win and eighth consecutive win in their home opener.
“I think there was some times that we maybe pressed a little bit. There were some times that we did some first game, it wasn’t just mistakes, I would say it was first game, you know, I don’t want to call it nerves, but we had to get some stuff out, and we had to make sure we did it against somebody else,” head coach Ryan Carty said postgame. “Obviously, wasn’t as clean as we wanted it to be, but I think eventually we settled down and handled, you know, what we needed to handle on both sides of the ball.”
It was the Blue Hens defense that handled their business in the opening 30 minutes of their 2026 campaign, holding the Warriors under 80 total yards and forcing two turnovers in the first half. Both turnovers were forced in the second quarter and both resulted in points for the Blue Hens.
UD led by seven going into the second quarter following Viron Ellison Jr.’s 11-yard run on the team’s opening drive. The Blue Hens subsequent two drives generated 39 total yards and ended without points. The offense turned the ball over to Merrimack at the Warriors own 27 yard line with an opportunity to drive down the field and tie the game with a little less than nine minutes remaining in the first half.
The Warriors accomplished the first part, driving down to the UD 35 yard line in seven plays. Merrimack quarterback AJ Hairston Jr. took the snap from the shotgun formation, but was met by immediate pressure from Delaware’s defensive front. Hairston Jr. launched a pass that soared over the head of its intended receiver, into the endzone and right into the hands of sophomore safety George Mullins. Mullins completed the catch and slid in the endzone for a touchback, handing possession back to the Delaware offense.
Sophomore safety George Mullins sliding in the endzone following his first career interception. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
UD’s offense took over from its own 20 yard line and from there, looked like the dynamic passing attack that ranked first in Conference USA (CUSA) last season.
Senior quarterback Nick Minicucci threw for 68 yards on two throws leading Delaware’s offense into the red zone. The first completion was a 31-yard deep throw to the back shoulder of senior receiver Donovan Lewis. The second was a 37-yard completion to Coastal Carolina transfer Bryson Graves on the next play. Minicucci finished the drive with a 12-yard run into the endzone putting the Blue Hens ahead by two scores.
The Delaware offense tallied another touchdown before halftime, benefitting from another stellar defensive play.
The Warriors took over at their own 20 yard line with less than 40 seconds remaining in the half after blocking UD kicker Tucker Smack’s 26-yard field goal attempt the drive prior. Hairston Jr. handed the ball off to running back DeMarcus McElroy and McElroy was met by freshman safety Kevin Moore. Moore’s hit jarred the ball out of McElroy’s hands and onto the field. The ball bounced off multiple players before being engulfed by a diving Blake Matthews as he slid toward the sideline.
“So I’m trying to push [a Merrimack player] out the way and then somebody jumped on it and I was like ‘oh we got it’and then it bounced out and I was like, well I got to keep going,” Matthews said postgame. “Right before we got to the sidelines, I tried to jump on it before we get out and luckily it didn’t bounce off my chest as well.”
Matthew’s recovery put the Blue Hen offense back on the field, in the red zone with 23 seconds before halftime. Minicucci only needed seven.
The senior connected with junior wideout Sean Wilson for a 12-yard touchdown near the back left pylon that put the Blue Hens ahead, 21-0, at halftime.
“Our defense played great today,” Minicucci said postgame. “I mean just getting us a chance to have the ball is a blessing and we took advantage of most of our opportunities, but we still, we’re not satisfied with what we did. So, we got a lot to clean up.”
Delaware’s offense accumulated 242 total yards and scored 14 more points in the third quarter to go into the fourth quarter ahead, 35-7. The highlight play from the frame was a trick play involving Minicucci, Ellison Jr. and the player that scored both of the Blue Hens third quarter touchdowns — Kaderris Roberts.
The play started with Minicucci in the shotgun with Roberts on his right. Ellison lined up with his right foot on the 20 yard line and a receiver in front of him lined up at the line of scrimmage. Tight end Scott Moore motioned over, the ball was snapped and Minicucci fired to Ellison. The play looked like a designed screen for the junior running back, but Ellison didn’t run. He faked the run, stopped and fired a pass to Roberts who was left all alone down the right side of the field.
“First off, that was a dot,” Minicucci said, getting a laugh out of those at the postgame press conference. “I mean that was unreal.”
The Minicucci to Ellison to Roberts connection resulted in a 75-yard touchdown and a 28-point lead.
“That specific throw, it needs to be somebody who’s got a gun,” Carty said. “We talk about high risk, high reward. That one, we saw what we wanted and we got it, but that was still certainly something that could’ve went the other way.”
Minicucci stayed in at the start of the fourth quarter, but was pulled from the game after throwing his second touchdown pass to junior receiver Nick Tyree — the first receiving touchdown of his career. Junior quarterback Braden Streeter played the rest of the fourth quarter as UD coasted to the win. Minicucci finished with 330 passing yards, three total touchdowns and an interception.
UD’s offense finished the game with 547 total yards, 14 big plays (runs of 10 or more yards and passes of 15 or more yards) and averaged 7.6 yards per play. The defense held Merrimack to 244 total yards, sacked the quarterback three times and forced two turnovers.
“Obviously we saw when it was slow, you know, the spark was created by the defense, and that’s got to be who we, who we should be, playing off each other and playing complementary,” Carty said.
The Blue Hen players celebrate with the fans in the stands after their win over the Merrimack Warriors. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
The Blue Hens next opponent is a step up from the FCS competition they faced Thursday night. UD will travel to Nashville, Tennessee, for a matchup with the SEC’s Vanderbilt Commodores. The game starts at 4:15 p.m. and will be nationally televised on SEC Network.
To read more about what awaits the Blue Hens in their non-conference schedule click here.
Photo: Saturday, Hagley Museum reopens following presevation work over the past two weeks.
All major areas of the museum will again be accessible following improvements to the mill race, Millwright Shop and surrounding industrial landscape.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Hagley Museum and Library’s historic Powder Yard has reopened to the public following the completion of a two-week preservation and maintenance project.
The reopening will restore visitor access to all major areas of the museum, including its industrial landscape, waterpower system, mill race and historic shops along the Brandywine.
The Powder Yard had been temporarily closed while contractors completed projects that required heavy equipment, road closures and unrestricted access to parts of the property. The rest of the museum remained open during the work, with Hagley offering half-price admission because one of its principal attractions was unavailable.
With the Powder Yard reopened, the temporary discount has ended and regular admission prices have resumed.
Maintenance protects historic landscape
One of the project’s most significant components involved dredging the mill race inlet to remove accumulated silt and debris and improve water flow into Hagley’s historic power system.
The mill race directed water from the Brandywine to waterwheels that powered machinery throughout the original du Pont powder works. Maintaining that system helps visitors understand how waterpower supported early American manufacturing.
Crews also replaced the roof on the Millwright Shop and stabilized masonry along portions of the mill race. Those improvements are intended to protect the historic structures against weather, erosion and further deterioration.
Hazardous trees were removed from the Powder Yard and Crowninshield areas to improve safety, while additional preventive maintenance was coordinated across the industrial section of the property.
The temporary closure allowed the museum to complete the projects efficiently while protecting visitors, employees and contractors.
Full museum experience returns
Visitors will once again be able to tour the Powder Yard and walk through the industrial center of the former powder-making operation. The area includes historic mills, shops and the waterpower infrastructure that supported manufacturing along the Brandywine for generations. This weekend, the cannons will be fired on Saturday afternoon, the 250th Anniversary Tours will resume at 11:00 and 1:00, and fishing on the banks of the Brandywine is open between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm.
Eleutherian Mills, the du Pont family’s first American home, and its gardens are also open. That portion of the museum offers a more personal look at the family’s early life in Delaware and its connection to the business developing nearby.
The “Nation of Inventors” exhibition remains open at the Visitor Center. Drawing on Hagley’s extensive collections, the interactive exhibition examines how inventors recognize problems, develop ideas, and create products and technologies.
The Visitor Center and Museum Store are also open.
A site central to Delaware history
Hagley is the site of the original du Pont powder works, founded along the Brandywine in 1802 by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont.
The business developed into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of black powder and became the foundation of the DuPont company. Its growth influenced Delaware’s economy, workforce and identity for generations.
The property was more than a factory. It became an industrial community where immigrant workers and their families lived, worked and built connections that helped shape Wilmington and the Brandywine Valley.
Today, Hagley preserves the mills, mill race, waterpower system, machine shops, workers’ history and du Pont family home that together tell the story of early American industry.
Its importance extends beyond the du Pont legacy. The property demonstrates how waterpower, engineering, labor, immigration, family life and entrepreneurship converged during the country’s industrial development.
The completed maintenance work helps protect that landscape while allowing visitors to experience Delaware history in the place where much of it happened.
To Go Box:
What: Hagley Museum and Library
Status: The historic Powder Yard will reopen, and all major museum areas are accessible on Saturday.
What to see: Powder Yard, historic mills and shops, mill race and waterpower system, Eleutherian Mills and gardens, “Nation of Inventors” exhibition, Visitor Center and Museum Store.
Admission: Regular admission pricing will resume Saturday.
Just got a bonk rock to start practicing. Any bonk experts have any tips for me? I already attended YouTube University so I’m looking for firsthand experience or feedback.
By John Riddle, Contributing Journalist, Delaware LIVE
A summer lemonade stand allowed 6-year-old Lucy Johnson to do more than check an activity off her bucket list. It gave her an opportunity to support the four-legged friend who has helped make her hospital treatments less frightening.
Lucy raised more than $600 for Dogs on Call, the Animal Assisted Therapy program at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware. The program holds a special place in the young patient’s heart because of Ali, a goldendoodle and facility service dog who comforts Lucy during her appointments.
For most children Lucy’s age, visiting a hospital can be intimidating. For Lucy, those visits have been a regular part of her life since she was a toddler.
She was 1½ years old when she was diagnosed with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, or sJIA, a rare inflammatory condition. Her continuing care at Nemours Children’s has included frequent injections and intravenous infusions.
Although the treatments were necessary, receiving them could be frightening for such a young child. Members of Lucy’s care team tried several approaches to ease her anxiety, including cold sprays to numb her skin and vibration devices intended to distract her. Nothing seemed to make the procedures feel less frightening.
Then Lucy met Ali.
With the goldendoodle beside her during appointments, Lucy’s family began seeing a change. There were fewer tears, more smiles and a greater sense of calm during situations that previously had been filled with fear.
“When she sees Ali, her eyes just light up and her body relaxes,” said Lucy’s mom, Kelly Johnson. “It’s like a wave of calmness comes over Lucy.”
Dogs on Call brings certified therapy dogs and clinically trained facility dogs into the hospital to support children and their families. The dogs provide companionship, distraction, emotional support and, when needed, plenty of comforting snuggles.
For Lucy, the program’s support also comes from Kelsey Cebula, an Animal Assisted Therapy coordinator and certified child life specialist who works alongside Ali.
“Kelsey really has a way with kids,” Kelly said. “She talks Lucy through what to expect and provides structure and consistency during times of chaos. It means the world to me that someone would look out for my kid as if she were their own.”
Together, Ali and Cebula have helped turn some of Lucy’s most stressful appointments into experiences in which she feels safer and supported.
The idea for the fundraiser began when Lucy created a summer bucket list filled with activities she wanted to complete before the season ended. One of those activities was holding a lemonade stand.
As Lucy and her mother planned the stand, they discussed what she might do with the money she earned. Lucy had an appointment at Nemours Children’s that same day and spent time with Ali and Cebula.
The visit inspired her answer.
“Why don’t we have the money go to Ali?” she asked.
Her mother agreed, recognizing the importance of helping a program that is funded entirely through donations.
“Being a kid and having to go to the hospital can be frightening and sometimes even traumatizing for kids and their families,” Kelly said. “Supporting this program is far more than providing dog treats and dog toys. Dogs on Call brings comfort and happiness to scary situations and eases anxiety. It helps children feel less like patients and more like kids.”
Lucy’s lemonade stand quickly became more than a summertime activity. It became her way of helping other children experience the comfort Ali had given her.
The community’s response surpassed the family’s expectations, with the stand generating more than $600 for Dogs on Call.
Lucy’s donation was a heartfelt thank-you to the program that helped her through difficult moments. It also demonstrated how one child, one lemonade stand and one special dog can help replace fear with comfort, connection and joy.
Delaware Lottery introduces new NFL-themed POWERBALL Xs & Os game
Delaware Lottery launches the new POWERBALL Xs & Os weekly draw game, with tickets on sale Sept. 8 and the first drawing Sept. 13. (Photo courtesy of Delaware Lottery.)
Delaware Lottery players will soon have a new football-themed game to play, as the Delaware Lottery joins 24 jurisdictions offering the new POWERBALL Xs & Os weekly draw game beginning next month.
Tickets go on sale Tuesday, Sept. 8, at Delaware Lottery retailers statewide. The first drawing is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 13, at 10 p.m., with drawings continuing every Sunday throughout the year.
The $5 game combines NFL team selections with a traditional lottery drawing. Players choose eight NFL teams from all 32 franchises — or opt for a Quick Pick — and win prizes based on how many team logos match those drawn. The jackpot starts at $1 million and rolls over until won.
Players can also purchase up to 10 consecutive drawings for an additional $5 per drawing.
Prize payouts range from $7 for matching four teams to $20,000 for matching seven, while matching all eight teams wins the jackpot.
The game also marks the first nationwide promotional prize program in POWERBALL history. Players can enter eligible winning and non-winning POWERBALL Xs & Os tickets online to earn points that can be used as entries for prize drawings. Available prizes include a trip to Super Bowl LXI, NFL Shop gift cards and other NFL-themed experiences.
Delaware Lottery Players Club members can also enter eligible tickets through the Players Club to earn additional points toward state promotions and drawings.
“From the NFL to the college teams we root for, Delawareans love football — and it’s a sport that unites people and communities,” said Helene Keeley, director of the Delaware Lottery. “The Delaware Lottery is thrilled to harness all this football excitement to offer players a new way to enjoy the sport and potentially win cash and other prizes, while keeping the focus on fun and responsible play.”
The Delaware Lottery said the new game complements its existing sports offerings, including Sports Pick, which has been available for more than 15 years. Sports Pick allows wagering on professional and collegiate sporting events at Delaware casinos, participating retailers and online.
Unlike sports betting, POWERBALL Xs & Os results are determined through a random lottery drawing and are not based on the outcomes of NFL games.
Lottery officials remind players that games are intended only for adults who meet applicable age, residency and eligibility requirements, and encourage responsible play.
A quarter century after the September 11 attacks emboldened then-President George W. Bush to launch the “war on terror,” many Americans might like to think they’re wiser than the politicians and pundits who unleashed a flood of anti-Muslim hatred and eroded civil liberties through warrantless wiretaps and racist deportation campaigns.
But some of the most notorious Bush-era advents — like the Department of Homeland Security and the prison colony at Guantánamo Bay — don’t appear to be going anywhere. Nor does the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which is playing a major role in the current political cycle. Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed — who, if elected, would be the first Muslim U.S. senator — has been called a terrorist, a radical Islamist, and a threat to national security, as pro-corporate and pro-Israel super PACs spend millions on ads that paint him as a terrorist sympathizer. In New York City, meanwhile, local media has suggested that the city’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, should not attend the commemoration of the World Trade Center attacks, as if to do so would be an insult to the victims and their families.
“Islamophobia actually becomes more rampant during election season — not necessarily after a terrorist attack, but actually during election season in the U.S.,” journalist Rozina Ali tells The Intercept Briefing. “What’s happened over the last three decades is that Islamophobia has become a feature of American politics. … When you can’t actually discuss the policies, when we’re not willing to engage in facts, it’s really easy to throw racist rhetoric at people.”
“The fight that we’re seeing now is whether we are willing to accept all forms of religion in this country. And as much as I want to say this is just more of what we’ve seen in the past, I think what does frighten me is how quickly we are moving to a place where some governor or some local official might try to outlaw Islam altogether. And mind you, this is even a policy shift from 10 years ago when Trump called for a Muslim ban,” says Ali. “What has been happening recently is that the rhetoric … has been shifting toward, ‘Islam is not a religion, it’s a political ideology.’ This is not a new talking point, but it is becoming institutionalized. There are efforts to make it into law, which is a frightening place to be.”
This week on the podcast, host Akela Lacy speaks to Ali about how anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies are on the rise and have endured, or even worsened, in the post-9/11 world, as well as her new book, “Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America.” Ali shares the first case in which the NSA admitted to spying on a U.S. citizen, Arab American attorney Abdeen Jabara, as well as the story of imam Yassin Aref, a victim of a controversial sting operation who served 15 years in federal prison due to the ambiguous “material support” for terrorism law first passed in the ’90s. It was the same charge used to convict anti-ICE protesters at Prairieland Detention Center to decades in prison this year.
“This was something lot of civil rights lawyers and activists were warning about even back then, because they recognized that this law and this war on terror can be used to attack dissidents and eventually will be used to attack a lot more people than the Muslim community. And that is what we’re seeing now,” says Ali.
“Because we’ve given so much power to the executive branch, because we’ve given so much power to the government over the last 25 years, the government gets to decide who they consider enemies, who they consider terrorists, and what they consider support for terrorism,” says Ali. “The Trump administration can say, ‘I now consider leftists terrorists,’ and unfortunately, there are laws in the books that allow him to do that.”
For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.
Transcript
Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter at The Intercept.
Jessica Washington: And, I’m Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept.
AL: Jessie, it’s Labor Day weekend. Unless you’re a summer-truther like me, this marks the end of summer for most people. And accordingly, things are taking a hard pivot toward November.
I’m going to run through a few things that caught my eye in the last few days: ICE is planning to pay $5 million to create a national voter database, per reporting from Wired. Nothing to see there, I’m sure.
The Trump administration is also deploying hundreds of Department of Homeland Security agents to conduct a witch hunt for unspecified voter fraud, despite lacking evidence that that’s a real issue.
In Congress, Democrats are considering whether to punish two lawmakers who sided with Republicans this week to advance a key procedural vote. And they’re weighing new rules for the caucus that worry progressives and several other caucuses across the ideological spectrum. But progressives in particular are worried that these new rules, if passed, could ice out the new class of socialists who are on track to take office in January. Separately, but perhaps most importantly, the United Nations said we’ve basically lost any chance to stop the worst of global warming.
JW: OK, I’m really going to avoid making a heat joke. But I will say that August in Washington is officially over and that means not only is the weather getting a little bit cooler, although, I guess, we’ll see. It also means there is a lot more news to cover. Although, I would say it is hard to argue we’ve gotten much rest this last month.
In Massachusetts on Tuesday night, Democratic Sen. Ed Markey easily defeated his challenger, Democratic congressman Seth Moulton. Moulton had run on his relative youth, but was hamstrung by people’s perception that he was both inauthentic and far too conservative for the state. After the 2024 presidential election, Moulton had made this very public appeal to the right, arguing that protecting transgender children had harmed Democrats electorally and that it made them seem out of touch. But as it turned out, from Tuesday night, Moulton ended up being the one who seemed out of touch with his voters in Massachusetts.
In some more somber news, this week marks one year since the Trump administration began carrying out strikes on civilians in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The Intercept’s Nick Turse reported that the United States has killed 227 civilians in the more than 65 attacks that have been carried out in the name of defeating so-called narco terrorists. There’s this one passage from Nick’s piece on the anniversary that really sticks with me.
“It’s been a year of murders,” said a defense official who was horrified by the first strike and has remained so as the U.S. has targeted scores of so-called “drug boats” in the year since. “The Trump administration has normalized murder.” The official added: “It’s absolutely criminal.”
And then of course, next week marks the 25th anniversary of September 11, so there’s a lot to reflect on when it comes to the legacy of that attack and how it fundamentally reshaped our society.
AL: Yes, and while so much has changed in the last 25 years since 9/11, it also feels like a lot has stayed the same — or, in many cases, gotten worse.
One of the major effects of 9/11 we’re reminded frequently of is the sprawling surveillance apparatus spawned by those attacks as we see its power put to use on almost a daily basis against immigrants, political dissidents, U.S. citizens, and particularly Muslim and Arab communities. We probably know only a small percentage of the destruction the post-9/11 wave of Islamophobia wrought not just in wars around the world, but here at home.
Today, Islamophobia is seeing its own grotesque renaissance, particularly in this year’s midterms. We’re going to get into all of this with our guest today, journalist Rozina Ali. But first, I wonder if you could tell us the latest here, Jessie.
JW: We got a really great example of what you’re talking about this week from CBS News, perhaps unsurprisingly.
AL: The shade. [Laughter]
JW: On Monday, the outlet, now led by conservative commentator Bari Weiss, published a story on Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed saying “Deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.”
Now, the tweets were very innocuous; as many people pointed out, this is a non-story. In two of them, he asked Americans to take Covid-19 as seriously as the terror attacks. But it’s a familiar playbook from the right and their media apparatus: Weaponize 9/11 to stoke Islamophobic fear about a Muslim candidate, rinse, repeat.
You discuss the legacy of 9/11 and how Islamophobia has been weaponized with journalist Rozina Ali. Let’s hear that conversation now.
AL: Yes, joining me now is Rozina Ali, a journalist and contributing writer at New York Times Magazine, a fellow at Type Media Center and at New America, and previously a senior editor at the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. Ali writes primarily about the war on terror, Islamophobia, the Middle East, and South Asia. She has a new book out called, “Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America.”
Rozina, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.
Rozina Ali: Thank you so much for having me. It’s really nice to be here.
AL: Rozina, unfortunately, we are going to start with midterms. We’re approaching the 25-year anniversary of 9/11. You’ve covered the subsequent war on terror and the rise in Islamophobia. A quarter of a century later, Islamophobia is still not just alive and well, but playing a major role in our current political cycle. Why do you think that is?
RA: Over the last 25 years, Islamophobia actually becomes more rampant during election season — not necessarily after a terrorist attack, but actually during election season in the U.S.
What we’re seeing now isn’t unusual. Actually, what’s happened over the last three decades is that Islamophobia has become a feature of American politics.
That said, what we’re seeing now is so rampant, and the anti-Muslim vitriol is just so stark and prevalent, that it is shocking to people who’ve been following this for three decades, like myself.
AL: It feels, as you said, in some ways, like the Islamophobia of 2026 is even more explicit, in some cases, than it was in the post-9/11 world.
We’re seeing a rise in Islamophobic attacks in communities around the country. Three people were killed in an attack on a mosque in San Diego in May. And as you noted, all of this has taken a particularly ugly turn in midterms — specifically the Michigan Senate race, where Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been called a “terrorist,” a “radical” Islamist, and a threat to national security.
But we also saw a lot of similar rhetoric aimed at Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race last year. At The Intercept, this cycle, we reported on the record-breaking spending from pro-corporate and pro-Israel super PACs against El-Sayed amounting to about $60 million, much of which paid for ads that painted him as a terrorist sympathizer.
How are you seeing Islamophobia take shape this cycle, and how are people responding?
RA: What’s being thrown at Abdul El-Sayed is actually, again, not unusual. It’s the same playbook that we’ve been seeing. But what is interesting is the way in which the Islamophobic rhetoric somewhat differs between Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed.
What’s interesting with Zohran is that a lot of the vitriol against him was that he was not American. That he was not born in the U.S., and there was a lot of anti-immigration rhetoric thrown at him too. There were calls to denaturalize him, suggesting that he was too foreign in many ways to be mayor of New York City.
You can’t quite do that with Abdul El-Sayed. He was born in Michigan. He was raised there; he went to school there. You can’t actually call for his denaturalization. But what Islamophobes have been doing and what the right-wing has been doing has been suggesting that he has alliances with foreign groups.
Specifically, that his family members have alliances with the Muslim Brotherhood or affiliations with them. The problem is that this has been a strategy that has been used over the past 25 years — suggestions that there are sleeper cells in the U.S., or that there are people who have affiliations with scary groups abroad.
Oftentimes, what the media did was just blare those headlines without really delving deeper into what does it mean to have such an affiliation, if it is true.
I think it’s really interesting that you brought up the San Diego mosque shooting that happened earlier this year, because one of the things that happened soon after was the New York Post did — and I know the New York Post has its flaws, and we should not take it seriously! But their headline when covering this tragic incident was saying, actually, the mosque had affiliations with some of the 9/11 hijackers. They chose to focus on that — as if the anti-Muslim attack was justified in some ways.
Earlier when you asked why is Islamophobia so rampant now, one reason is because for 25 years, anti-Muslim sentiment and rhetoric has been justified over and over again, both by policymakers and media and the public in general.
The New York Post “ chose to focus on that — as if the anti-Muslim attack was justified in some ways.”
AL: Your book touches on this, how the era that we’re living in right now with the attacks — particularly on pro-Palestine students, or surveillance of pro-Palestine activity in response to the genocide in Gaza — echoes the rise of the post-1967 surveillance state targeting Arab communities in the U.S.
A lot of this is encapsulated in the current obsession with leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. We just can’t seem to get away from him being a prominent feature in the news cycle. But I’m going to ask you about this anyway, because I think it’s relevant to the discussion.
In response to a segment on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash that spent six minutes on El-Sayed and Piker, Piker posted on X:
it sounds unbelievably stupid but i have become this media cycle’s “trans athletes” or “migrant caravan.” wild how much supposedly liberal outlets let fox news play the role of news desk editor.
odd how none of these outlets will have me on to interrogate my beliefs directly.
Over recent months, Piker, who has endorsed and campaigned with progressive candidates, has become a prime target of Democrats and Republicans and mainstream news.
Here, he’s pointing out this feature, as you’re describing it, Rozina — a feature, not a bug of our politics. Where rather than focusing on the issues actually impacting people’s lives, there’s this effort to distract attention and channel anger toward a minority group, stoke unfounded fears, and spread lies and disinformation.
I want to talk more about how you think about this dynamic and particularly why something that is such an obvious distraction can be so effective?
RA: This is what American media does, right? I will say I am part of the American media. We both are.
AL: We all are, yeah.
RA: We all are. There are journalists who are doing incredible work and trying to cut through the noise and trying to actually report on what’s happening.
But what I do find is that a lot of media coverage that revolves around conversations or opinions or talking points becomes so much about one thing.
“ A lot of the reason [Hasan Piker is] getting such vitriol is because of what he says regarding Palestine and Israel.”
This obsession with Hasan Piker actually reflects something that has been a long-standing issue, which is a lot of the reason he’s getting such vitriol is because of what he says regarding Palestine and Israel. Again, not something new.
This has been a problem for decades that the space to have a nuanced conversation about U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine has contracted over many, many years. Certainly after the 1970s, definitely after the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.
But we really saw that much more after 9/11 — that any space to criticize U.S. foreign policy abroad, whether it be in Israel–Palestine, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or even critique the war on terror in general, that space was just contracted, and certainly for Muslims and certainly for Arabs. I think what we’re seeing now is basically a continuation of that.
I do wonder what would happen — if we would be obsessed with Hasan Piker and what he says — if there were more opportunities to actually discuss some of the things that he was bringing up, rather than shut it down.
“The space to have a nuanced conversation about U.S. policy towards Israel and Palestine has contracted over many years.”
AL: The space for this conversation on Israel and Palestine is getting smaller at the same time that it should theoretically be getting wider, right?
Because American sentiment is historically on the side of Palestinians for the first time in recent history. The number of elected officials campaigning on this issue and who have entered Congress over the last six or seven years is at a record high. And yet you see the space not just contracting, but being astroturfed at levels that we’ve never seen when it comes to political spending.
And I think that conversation is often really lost because we are so apt to talk about the historic achievements of this movement in the zeitgeist or public opinion, if you want to call it [that]. But the forces that are working to undermine that movement are stronger than ever at this point.
RA: Absolutely. It is fascinating to me the ways in which the pro-Palestine movement has gained steam over the last decade. Obviously, what happened after October 7 has really changed the momentum and increased the momentum, but there were a lot of attempts to actually shift the conversation from even a decade ago or a decade and a half ago.
A lot of these groups were working on the ground for much longer. It’s just become such a huge part of the public conversation, one, because of what Israel has been doing in Gaza; two, because of the U.S.’s — both Biden and Trump administration’s — full-hearted support for that; and three, because there have been a lot more politicians speaking out about it. There’s actually challenges to this.
One thing to remember is that, yes, basically the pro-Israel lobby has had a lot of money for a long time, but they’ve been throwing money at local elections for the past decade while this movement has been ramping up.
What is interesting to me now compared to 10 years ago, or even, let’s say, after 9/11, is that there is such a discrepancy between what policymakers want or what these interest groups want versus public opinion on the ground, to your point.
“There is such a discrepancy between what policymakers want or what these interest groups want vs. public opinion on the ground.”
That discrepancy is actually something that we need to be paying more attention to. I wish that [the] media would be talking about that a lot more, because if we continue the same policies we have been that the U.S. population does not agree with, we are going to continue to basically worsen distrust in the government, which has been a problem for the last three decades.
There has been waning trust in the U.S. government by the American public, and we have seen how that can be catastrophic. We have seen what happens when people stop losing faith in institutions and in their government. Obviously, this is one policy matter among many, but I do think that gap is something worth paying attention to.
Speaking of the lack of nuanced discussion about Palestine and Israel among U.S. policymakers, a few years ago, I did a profile of Rashida Tlaib for the New York Times Magazine, and I was surprised to learn that the House has about over 300 different caucuses. There is not one that is dedicated to Palestine or Palestinian rights.
That just illustrates how little we are willing to actually talk about this as a policy matter. It’s not shocking to me that the vitriol thrown at Abdul El-Sayed, or even Zohran Mamdani last year, had a lot to do with Islamophobia.
When you can’t actually discuss the policies, when we’re not willing to engage in facts, it’s really easy to throw racist rhetoric at people.
[Break]
AL: I want to talk about what’s been happening in Texas, because I think this is a poignant example of how this has spiraled out of control and seeped into a new form, almost, in 2026. Last year, a promotional video about a Muslim-friendly planned community went viral and sparked a wave of Islamophobic vitriol.
Since then, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law, “Banning Sharia Compounds.” He and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is also the Republican Senate candidate in Texas, ordered investigations against the development and other Muslim institutions across the state. The Department of Justice even launched an investigation, but closed it without finding wrongdoing, according to reporting from PBS. Now, Republican candidates in the state have been campaigning on “The Islamification of Texas.”
What has been your reaction to all of that?
[Rozina Ali laughs]
AL: You can have a range of reactions. [laughs]
RA: I did! I did go through a range of reactions, which was, “Oh, this is Texas doing its thing again.” Or, “Oh, people hate CAIR. That’s not new.” I hate to say it, but there’s a humor about it, too, because this anti-sharia sentiment is so absurd. One of the first times I heard sharia being used — and I grew up in a Muslim household — the first time I heard the word sharia was through Islamophobes in like 2009. I truly did not know what it meant.
“I don’t think that Greg Abbott or any of the other Republicans who are so staunchly against visible Muslims in Texas can explain what sharia means.”
I don’t think that Greg Abbott or any of the other Republicans who are so staunchly against visible Muslims in Texas can explain what sharia means. They can say it’s Islamic law, which is against Western civilization.
But one, they have not been able to show what it means on a very practical level; and two, they haven’t been able to show how that differs from the ways in which other religious communities practice their own religion in the U.S., or how they seek moral guidance.
Ultimately, what it comes down to, what the fight that we’re seeing now is whether we are willing to accept all forms of religion in this country. And as much as I want to say this is just more of what we’ve seen in the past, I think what does frighten me is how quickly we are moving to a place where some governor or some local official might try to outlaw Islam altogether. And mind you, this is even a policy shift from 10 years ago when Trump called for a Muslim ban.
So within even 10 years, there’s a dramatic shift. We’re not even just saying ban Muslim immigrants from coming into the United States. We are now having conversations where officials want to ban Muslims or Islam altogether.
“We are now having conversations where officials want to ban Muslims or Islam altogether.”
Just a little background: There have long been suspicions about Islamic institutions in this country. Islamic institutions have been surveilled going back to the ’80s and ’90s, and I mean mass surveillance, informants showing up at meetings, talking to and interrogating leaders.
After 2001, there was even an investigation into Muslim chaplains who would visit prisons because some policymakers were worried that they were radicalizing the prison population. There wasn’t really any criminal wrongdoing found actually, but this sense of Muslim institutions are suspicious has been, again, a feature of America for a long time.
But what does worry me is what has been happening recently is that the rhetoric in Texas has been shifting toward, “Islam is not a religion, it’s a political ideology.” This is not a new talking point, but it is becoming institutionalized. There are efforts to make it into law, which is a frightening place to be.
Texas has a huge Muslim population, and I wonder, what does that mean? Does that mean you shut down all the mosques? Does that mean that no Muslim can practice in public?
I have conflicted feelings about the Muslim neighborhood that was being built, and I know it was open to non-Muslims. But I do think what it suggests and what we are seeing more and more in the U.S. is a desire to live in pockets and to live in silos because people feel more comfortable with their community.
That actually is a marked difference from what we decided in the U.S., that we wanted to be a society of pluralism and tolerance, and that’s not what we’re seeing in Texas. You can blame the Muslim community, but very much so I blame a lot of the Islamophobes who not only suggest but say outright that Muslims do not belong in this country.
AL: As you’re talking, I can’t help but think about the irony of trying to frame Islam as a political ideology, while the rise of the Christian far-right as an actual political ideology is completely undergirding the Trump administration and its policy priorities across disciplines — and redirecting attention away from what is a very real manifestation of religion as a political ideology toward this scapegoated community that is not just a distraction, but is causing actual harm.
I wonder, has that come up in your reporting? The parallel between the attacks on Islam and this attempt to paint it as this radical, growing tendril that’s seeping into the American political ideology — while the far-right is actually doing that.
RA: So one of the things I wanted to do in my book is really place this history of Islamophobia in the larger context of what’s happening in American politics and what’s happening in the country. And those two things don’t live in a vacuum.
What was happening to the Muslim community in the U.S. directly affected what was happening in the rest of the country and was affected by it. One of the things that was happening was that even as the media — for years after 9/11, for decades after 9/11 — even as the media covered cases of terrorism convictions or anyone who was charged with terrorism that was related to Muslims, covered the rise of ISIS, covered the rise of Islamic terrorism, it focused much less on the rise of right-wing extremism.
One study put it at over 300 percent more media covered Muslim terrorists than the far-right. What that did was really lull us into thinking that the biggest national security threat we are facing in this country comes from Islamic terrorists, rather than right-wing elements in this country.
It lulled “us into thinking that the biggest national security threat we are facing in this country comes from Islamic terrorists, rather than right-wing elements in this country.”
The other thing that’s happened is that a lot of rhetoric and policies over the past 25 years have actually tried to make Islam different. What’s ironic about what we’re seeing today versus 25 years ago is that after 9/11, the Bush administration tried in rhetoric — and I want to make that clear, in rhetoric, at least — tried to make this a not religious war. They really wanted to resist that this was a clash of civilizations. But the policies and the rhetoric that came out of those initial months after 9/11 actually suggested otherwise.
What happened was that the U.S. government and U.S. authorities and U.S. law enforcement and then eventually “experts” and anti-Muslim hate groups kept positioning Muslims as different or as a group to be suspicious of.
Ultimately, you are creating a religious war by stating the reality of the country in those terms. It’s a natural byproduct of that that Christian fundamentalism would rise as a response to what is considered “foreign elements,” like Islam.
AL: Your new book, “Seasons of Fury,” documents the rise of Islamophobia in the U.S. Can you tell us why you wanted to write this book, and how you started your work on it? Obviously, you’ve been covering this for a long time.
RA: So I was living in Egypt for a couple of years, and I was very much focused on wars abroad and how the war on terror has affected communities around the world. When I returned from Egypt, I was actually thinking a lot about terrorism convictions and how Muslims whose fathers or sons had been sent away to prison for decades, how they were faring.
I wasn’t actually trying to question these terrorism convictions, but while I was looking into these cases and speaking to families — this was around the time of the rise of Trump on the political stage, and I started noticing that there was a lot of anti-mosque activity around the country, not just in New York, but in New Jersey and Tennessee and Chicago, and it was shocking to me that it was happening in both blue and red states.
At the same time, after Trump was elected, people started calling his the most Islamophobic administration in U.S. history. I thought there was already a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment long before Trump came into power. I realized that all those threads that I was observing and starting to look into were actually connected.
One thing I wanted to do with this book is, one, reclaim the history that I think we too often forget about how the Muslim community in the U.S. was targeted and what it went through. But two, I really wanted to situate the Muslim story in the wider American story to explain how we’ve changed.
I really approached this book as an investigative journalist because one of the questions I was really trying to interrogate is: Why is Islamophobia worse now than it was even after 9/11? Why has our country changed so much that we have elected a president who is willing to say, “Let’s ban all the Muslims”? I wanted to really present a history that could explain why we are where we are today.
“Why has our country changed so much that we have elected a president who is willing to say, ‘Let’s ban all the Muslims’?”
AL: Through the stories of four families across eight decades in “Seasons of Fury,” you portray a range of Muslim experiences shaped by relentless suspicion and prejudice.
You write about Arab American attorney Abdeen Jabara, who “learned that the government had amassed an extensive file, covering his organizational affiliations, his travels through the country and abroad, transcripts of phone conversations, and notes from interviews with more than a hundred acquaintances, bank transactions, and summaries of speeches.”
It turned out that the U.S. government had been spying on him since 1967. Tell us more about Abdeen and how he became a target of the government.
RA: Abdeen’s history is so fascinating to me. One of the things that I wanted to do when I started this book was really actually situate Muslims as already part of America.
There’s such a predominant narrative that Islam and Muslims are foreign and they came into this country. I wanted to actually show the opposite, and it was very important to me to begin the book in the United States, rather than with someone’s arrival to the United States. Abdeen was born in 1940 in small-town America, in Michigan.
“There’s such a predominant narrative that Islam and Muslims are foreign and they came into this country. I wanted to actually show the opposite.”
His father, who came from Greater Syria, he was a staunch Republican. He joined the U.S. Army and fought during World War I. He was so patriotic that every Memorial Day he would march in a parade through town. Abdeen became really obsessed with his parents’ homeland; he became obsessed with the Middle East. But what really shook him was what was happening both in the United States and in Israel–Palestine.
So he really came of age during the 1950s and ’60s. He moved to Detroit, and what he saw was an uprising — the 1967 uprising — and he saw police brutality against Black Americans. That same year, there was a war in which Israel basically grabbed more land, more Palestinian land, and those two things really shook Abdeen, and he became very politically active.
He started going to socialist meetings to talk about Palestine. He started to speak at rallies and forums. He helped start a group in the United States that was focused on Palestinian rights. He even took many trips to the Middle East. He was part of the progressive network of National Lawyers Guild. He took a lot of members to the Middle East to meet with Palestinian activists and prisoners and really try to capture what was happening on the ground, bring those facts back to the U.S. to really help shape and influence public opinion and policymakers’ opinion about Palestine, because the U.S. government at that point had backed Israel.
So in 1972, the Munich massacre happens, in which a Palestinian militant group kidnaps and kills the Israeli Olympics team. It caused a huge sensation. It was tragic, and it was blared across national headlines in the U.S. Almost immediately after, Abdeen started to notice that his colleagues, his friends, people he knew in the community were being visited by the FBI.
What immediately came to light was that the U.S. government had started a surveillance program to monitor what it thought were radical elements within the Arab community. This is an operation they called Operation Boulder. Now, ostensibly, the U.S. government said that they were only tackling immigrants, visa holders. It became very clear that it was not just them; it was actually also U.S. citizens of Arab heritage that people were targeting.
He was a U.S. citizen, born, obviously, in the U.S. When Abdeen decided to sue the U.S. government to figure out exactly what they knew and how much they knew because he was suspicious that they had also surveilled him, what he eventually found was that they had been surveilling him since after 1967. So not even since after Munich, but long before then. And that they had shared his information not just with other federal agencies, but also with foreign governments.
AL: This is the first case where the NSA admitted to spying on someone, right?
RA: It was the first case in which the NSA admitted to spying on a U.S. citizen, yes. And it was against an Arab.
“It was the first case in which the NSA admitted to spying on a U.S. citizen.”
One thing that I find also interesting about Abdeen’s case and the entire surveillance program at that time is, Abedin grew up in a Muslim household. FBI and police notes noted that he was Muslim, that his family was Muslim.
They did not surveil him because he was Muslim. They surveilled him because he was Arab — which was the case for his other colleagues, too. They surveilled them because even if they happened to be Muslim, they were surveilled because they were Arab.
After 9/11, it was a similar sort of surveillance — except law enforcement surveilled Muslims because they were Muslims. And that really is a fascinating and damning shift that we see.
When I was doing this reporting and research, I was thinking to myself, I think this might be the first time in U.S. history that the government has targeted a religious group so widely and so systematically, which is, honestly, quite astonishing. And it is something that I wish we would talk about more and really reckon with.
AL: You said you started thinking about this book by thinking about convictions for terrorism charges, and we’ve seen the expansion of charges for “material support” for terrorism in a variety of protest spheres in recent years. I just want to zoom out a little bit because I think most of our listeners are familiar with the way that this apparatus exploded after 9/11.
We know that 9/11 gave way to George W. Bush’s so-called war on terror, the Department of Homeland Security, Guantánamo Bay, the erosion of civil liberties with the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps, and the acceleration of the unitary executive theory — resting more unilateral power in the hands of the president.
All of that — all of those institutions — now rest in the hands of Donald Trump and his administration, who, as we know, have proven willing to push the bounds of government surveillance, extrajudicial killings, unilateral wars, and detention of perceived enemies of the state even further. You wrote for The New York Times recently about the Prairieland activists that the government charged with “material support” of terrorism.
I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about how we got there, and how what constitutes terrorism and support for terrorism has evolved over the years.
RA: A lot of the structures and the laws that the Bush administration used to target terrorism were already in place in the United States. They were really expanded and founded during the Clinton administration in the ’90s.
This one specific law that you mentioned, the material support for terrorism, was actually passed in 1994, and then was expanded in 1996, ironically after the Oklahoma City bombing.
What it did was allow the U.S. government to prosecute anyone charged with support for terrorism, either a foreign terrorist organization or support a terrorist activity. The problem was that even in 1996, what “support” meant was so broad and vague.
It was so broad that even some senior administration officials asked the State Department, “Does that mean $25 in dues can be considered material support for terrorism?” The State Department official said, “Yes, actually. I don’t think anyone would prosecute for that, but yes.” So basically, by 1996, we had a really vague and powerful law on the books.
After 2001, prosecutors recognized that they had this really useful law to go after terrorists. One thing to remember is that after 9/11, the guiding star for the U.S. government across the board was prevention. “We have to prevent another attack before it happens,” which means that law enforcement were looking for not just terrorists before they could do something, but potential terrorists, anyone who could become a terrorist. It was a broad mission.
That plus the material support for terrorism law, which was already vague, allowed the U.S. government to basically put a lot of people in jail who were not even connected to a terrorist group or who did not even commit an act of violence or who did not even have particularly detailed plans for violence.
One of the cases I mentioned in the New York Times piece was the case of Yassin Aref, who was an imam in Albany, Kurdish imam. He came as a refugee. This is what’s so fascinating to me about the U.S. war on terror, is that when Yassin Aref came as a refugee, the U.S. considered Kurds their allies. After 2003, they were suspicious of Kurdish militants.
It was during that era, the post-9/11 era, that the U.S. government targeted Yassin Aref using an undercover informant. It’s not that Yassin Aref said, “I want to blow up something,” or “I have a plan,” or “I have a desire to kill someone.”
What actually happened was that the informant loaned money to one of Yassin Aref’s friends. Yasin Aref witnessed that loan. The informant said, “This money came from a foreign terrorist organization.” Yassin Aref did not really understand what this man was talking about and just nodded along. That was one of the pieces of evidence — the strongest piece of evidence — that U.S. prosecutors used to charge him with material support for terrorism.
Yassin Aref ended up in prison for 15 years. This is a case that illustrates, one, that material support was so vague and so broad, it really could mean anything and continues to mean anything. But two, what we consider terrorism has just broadened dramatically. We really have no good definition of what terrorism is.
And this was something that a lot of civil rights lawyers and activists were warning about even back then, because they recognized that this law and this war on terror can be used to attack dissidents and eventually will be used to attack a lot more people than the Muslim community. And that is what we’re seeing now.
We are seeing that because we’ve given so much power to the executive branch, because we’ve given so much power to the government over the last 25 years, the government gets to decide who they consider enemies, who they consider terrorists, and what they consider support for terrorism. And unfortunately, we have the legal backing in the books to back that mission. The Trump administration can say, “I now consider leftists terrorists,” and unfortunately, there are laws in the books that allow him to do that.
AL: They basically said as much claiming that all the socialists are heralding communism, et cetera, et cetera.
RA: Yes, it is one of the more, again, funny if not scary bits about the vitriol thrown at Abdul El-Sayed, is calling him an “Islamic communist.”
It’s so interesting to me that now it’s — I think especially because of the rise of the DSA and socialists in office — basically the right wing is throwing everything at him. And Abdul El-Sayed is not a socialist; he’s said it himself.
AL: He’s not. [laughs] On this show, he’s said that, yes.
RA: Yes. And Zohran Mamdani is a socialist, but it’s the same vitriol thrown at both of them. I think it’s really interesting and actually quite chilling that the rhetoric is starting to join the word “Islamic terrorist” with leftists or with socialists or communists. That actually spells something a lot more nefarious and dangerous for wider American society than just the Muslim community.
“It’s really interesting and actually quite chilling that the rhetoric is starting to join the word ‘Islamic terrorist’ with leftists or with socialists or communists.”
AL: Rozina, we’re going to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us on The Intercept Briefing.
RA: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
AL: I want to remind everyone that Rozina’s new book is out now. “Seasons of Fury” documents Islamophobia in the U.S..
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That does it for this episode of The Intercept Briefing.
This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.
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Two Philadelphia men have been arrested more than a year and a half after they allegedly crashed a stolen car into the front of a Newark church while fleeing from police.
The Western Family YMCA on Saturday unveiled its new and improved Kids’ Club, which provides children a safe, fun place to play while their parents enjoy the gym or pool.
The federal government plans to start excavation over the next two weeks on a massive triumphal arch near Washington, D.C., Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said, a controversial project championed by President Trump.
Federal complaint does not charge human trafficking, but advocates say the allegations illustrate grooming tactics and vulnerabilities that can precede exploitation.
By George D. Rotsch, Editor of Delaware LIVE
DOVER, Del. — Federal charges against a Dover Air Force Base airman accused of using Snapchat to communicate with a 15-year-old girl before transporting her from Pennsylvania to Delaware are drawing renewed attention to online grooming, child exploitation and the warning signs of human trafficking.
Dylan Williams, 27, is charged with coercion and enticement, transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Aug. 28 in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Investigators allege Williams began communicating with the teenager through Snapchat in June, knew she was 15 and later drove from Delaware to Pennsylvania to pick her up. Authorities found the girl at Williams’ Camden-area residence Aug. 20 after her parents reported her missing, according to the complaint.
The FBI alleges Williams admitted picking up the girl and bringing her to Delaware. Court records also describe alleged sexual encounters in Pennsylvania and Delaware.
Williams is an active-duty airman stationed at Dover Air Force Base, according to the complaint. The Dover Police Department, FBI, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Marshals Service and Pennsylvania authorities participated in the investigation.
The charges are accusations. Williams is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Grooming can begin online
While the Williams complaint does not allege a commercial exchange, advocates say cases involving online enticement can help parents and the public understand tactics that also appear in trafficking cases.
Those tactics can include gradually gaining a young person’s trust, introducing sexual conversations, encouraging secrecy, isolating the child from family members and convincing the child to leave a safe environment.
Trafficking does not always involve kidnapping, physical restraint or an organized criminal network. Exploiters may present themselves as romantic partners, protectors, employers or friends before using emotional dependency, threats, housing instability, substance use or financial pressure to gain control.
Young people experiencing family conflict, homelessness, prior abuse, social isolation or a lack of stable adult support can be particularly vulnerable. Social media, gaming platforms and messaging applications can give offenders direct and private access to young people.
A child may not recognize the relationship as abusive and may believe he or she willingly participated. Advocates say that makes it important for adults to look beyond whether a young person describes the relationship as consensual.
Delaware cases remain underreported
The full extent of trafficking in Delaware is difficult to measure because victims may fear retaliation, distrust authorities, depend on their trafficker or not recognize that they are being exploited.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 32 trafficking cases involving 61 victims in Delaware during 2024. The organization identified 31 cases in 2023, 28 in 2022, 30 in 2021 and 26 in 2020.
Those figures represent situations reported to and identified by the hotline. They are not a count of arrests or prosecutions and should not be treated as a complete measure of trafficking in Delaware, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Delaware’s location between Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, combined with its major highways, tourism industry and seasonal workforce, creates opportunities for both sex and labor exploitation. However, advocates caution against assuming trafficking is primarily caused by interstate highways or strangers moving victims from place to place.
Many cases originate within families, relationships, workplaces or online communications involving people the victim knows.
Summit aims to improve recognition
The Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors will bring survivors, national experts, law enforcement officials, medical providers, mental health professionals and community leaders together for Delaware’s inaugural Human Trafficking Awareness, Prevention and Action Summit.
The public summit will be held Friday, Oct. 2, at Hyatt Place Dewey Beach. Registration remains open through Sept. 18.
The program is intended to explain what trafficking looks like in Delaware, challenge common misconceptions and help professionals and residents recognize potential exploitation without putting a victim in greater danger.
Sessions will focus on survivor experiences, law enforcement, mental health, direct services and medical care. Topics are expected to include familial trafficking, trauma affecting children and adults, substance use, multidisciplinary response teams and vulnerabilities affecting boys and members of the LGBTQ community.
Kevin McNeil, a retired police officer and survivor of trafficking and sexual abuse, will deliver the opening keynote address. Survivor, therapist, author and comedian Marty MacGibbon will discuss the intersection of trafficking and substance abuse and close the conference with a presentation on mental wellness, self-care and trauma-informed practices.
The summit is open not only to professionals but also to parents, educators, business owners, hospitality employees, faith leaders, volunteers and other residents who want to understand the warning signs.
The Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors was established in 2014 as Meet Me at the Well Delaware. The organization provides individualized support to survivors seeking to leave sex trafficking and rebuild their lives, including mentoring, advocacy and connections to housing, employment and treatment.
To Go Box
What: Human Trafficking Awareness, Prevention and Action Summit
When: Friday, Oct. 2, 2026
Where: Hyatt Place Dewey Beach, 1301 Coastal Highway, Dewey Beach
Who may attend: Professionals, organizational leaders, service providers and members of the public
Report suspected trafficking: Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733. Call 911 when someone is in immediate danger.
See every state candidate running for every office on your ballot, all in one place.
DOVER, Del. — Delaware voters head to the polls Sept. 15 for a primary that will decide the Democratic and Republican nominees for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, attorney general and state treasurer, along with dozens of state Senate and House seats across all three counties. For early voting dates, hours and locations, see Delaware LIVE’s full voter guide.
Most legislative seats up this cycle aren’t actually contested, incumbents in both parties are running unopposed in a majority of districts. But where there is a race, it’s often a real one: Senator Chris Coons faces three Democratic challengers, eight legislative seats are open due to retirements, and one House district, District 8, has a contested primary on both sides at once. Six Republican candidates across these races are also still listed as “provisional” with the state still awaiting SBI criminal background check and residency review. Read more about how those late nominations came about here.
Not sure which state Senate or House district you’re in? Look up your district by address at the state’s official district lookup tool before checking Tables 2 and 3 below.
Locally, New Castle County is losing two of its longest-serving council members this cycle. Councilman Penrose Hollins, who represents District 4, is retiring after decades in office and has endorsed Curtis Linton to succeed him. Read his full profile and endorsement here. Councilwoman Janet Kilpatrick’s District 3 seat has drawn a head-to-head Democratic primary between Kira Alejandro and Kyle Grantham. Read their side-by-side profile here.
New Castle County residents: County Council and Recorder of Deeds are covered below. Kent and Sussex County residents don’t vote on these two offices, but you do have your own county-level races on the Nov. 3 ballot: Kent County has a Levy Court seat and Recorder of Deeds; Sussex County has two County Council seats and Recorder of Deeds. None required a primary, so they’re not listed here, but you can look up your full ballot here.
Not sure which New Castle County Council district you’re in? The same district lookup tool from above will show you that too.
The nonprofit, Dream Flights, honored a group of Delaware veterans on September 2, with short flights, delivering an opportunity for veterans to take to the sky once again.
The Honor Guard from VFW Post 8801 located in Smyrna, Delaware, performs at the Dream Flights event. The event took place at Delaware Airpark.
Cheswold Mayor, Jennette Williams, enjoyed the event which honored a group of Delaware veterans.
The group of veterans honored during the Dream Flights event pose for a group photo along with their care team members from the Delaware Health Care Facilities Association.
A 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane used during the event.
A look inside the cockpit of the 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane.
US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Sheldon Slater (age 95) was the first veteran to take flight. Here he shakes the hand of Founder and President of Dream Flights, Darryl Fisher, before the two go up in the air.
Lt. Col. Slater gets strapped in and is ready to go. Slater served in the Korean War and Vietnam War.
Lt. Col. Slater and Fisher take flight. Fisher was the pilot for the event.
Fisher gives a thumbs up to the crowd after a successful landing.
Lt. Col. Slater received a hat and certificate from Dream Flights after participating in the event.
US Army Corporal Basil Wisner (age 91) sits in the front cockpit ready to take off.
A look at the plane while Fisher and Cpl. Basil fly around.
Cpl. Basil poses for a photo with his hat and certificate from Dream Flights.
Every veteran honored got a chance to take to the skies thanks to the non-profit organization, Dream Flights. According to the organizations’ website, they have participated in over 8,200 flights to date.
All photos courtesy of Dave Reeder. To see more of Dave’s work follow him on Instagram @bfr_photo
The St. Anthony Community Center will unveil its new name, logo and brand during a community celebration and fundraiser from 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 10 at Juniper by Tonic in downtown Wilmington.
Wilmington organization will also mark the 40th anniversary of its Meals on Wheels program during a Sept. 10 fundraiser
WILMINGTON — After more than five decades of serving children, older adults and families, St. Anthony’s Community Center is preparing to introduce a new name and identity designed to reflect the breadth of the organization’s work today.
The center will unveil its new name, logo and brand during a community celebration and fundraiser from 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 10 at Juniper by Tonic in downtown Wilmington.
The event will mark the organization’s 55th anniversary and celebrate 40 years of delivering meals and support to older adults through its Meals on Wheels program.
“Our new identity better reflects the breadth of the programs and services we provide today and our vision for the future,” said Kim Caputo, executive director of St. Anthony’s Community Center.
Why the new identity matters
For a community organization, a brand is more than a name or logo. It tells residents whom the organization serves, helps families recognize where they can find assistance and gives donors, volunteers and community partners a clearer understanding of the work they are supporting.
St. Anthony’s name is well known in Wilmington, but it may not fully communicate the organization’s expanded role across New Castle County. Some residents may associate the center primarily with senior activities without realizing that it also provides countywide meal delivery, housing for older adults, early childhood education and caregiver resources.
A clearer identity can help connect more people with those services. It also can strengthen the organization’s ability to attract financial support, recruit volunteers and develop partnerships with health care providers, government agencies, businesses and other nonprofits.
That increased visibility will be important as the needs of older adults, caregivers, children and families continue to grow. By presenting its programs as parts of one coordinated mission, the organization hopes to serve more residents while preparing for its next generation of community work.
More than a senior center
Although St. Anthony’s has long been associated with services for older Wilmington residents, its work has expanded substantially since the organization was founded.
Today, the center operates the Meals on Wheels program throughout New Castle County, provides housing and activities for older adults, runs an early learning center and helps families caring for aging or disabled loved ones through its caregiver resource center.
Those programs allow the organization to serve people at several stages of life — from children beginning their education to older adults who want to remain independent in their homes.
The new identity is intended to bring those services under a name and brand that more clearly communicate the organization’s countywide reach and multigenerational mission.
The name will remain under wraps until the Sept. 10 celebration.
Four decades of delivering more than meals
The celebration also will recognize the 40th anniversary of St. Anthony’s Meals on Wheels program.
For four decades, the program has delivered meals to older adults across New Castle County. The visits also provide regular personal contact and an important connection for residents who may live alone or have difficulty leaving their homes.
Meals on Wheels has become one of St. Anthony’s most visible programs, but the organization’s expanding services reflect the increasingly complex needs of older adults and their families.
Its newest initiative, the caregiver resource center, connects caregivers with information and assistance as they navigate the responsibilities of helping an aging or disabled family member.
A celebration with a purpose
The New Brand Launch Party and Fundraiser will give community members an opportunity to see the new name and logo, learn more about St. Anthony’s programs and help support its continuing work.
The evening will include drinks, raffles, a silent auction and guest bartending.
State Sen. Dan Cruce, who represents the 1st Senate District, will serve as a guest bartender and present a proclamation recognizing the organization’s new name. Other state and community leaders also have been invited.
Proceeds from the fundraiser will support programs serving older adults, children, families and caregivers throughout Wilmington and New Castle County.
The organization said the rebranding represents a new chapter rather than a departure from its history. Its mission will continue to focus on responding to the changing needs of the community while building on more than 55 years of service.
To Go Box:
What: St. Anthony’s Community Center New Brand Launch Party and Fundraiser
When: Sept. 10, 6-9 p.m.
Where: Juniper by Tonic, 111 W. 11th St., Wilmington
Highlights: Unveiling of the organization’s new name, logo and brand; recognition of its 55th anniversary and the 40th anniversary of its Meals on Wheels program; guest bartending, raffles and a silent auction
New law requires hospitals to document clinical justification, transportation and backup care for pregnant patients discharged with signs of labor
DOVER — Delaware hospitals must create formal discharge plans for pregnant patients sent home before delivery after Gov. Matt Meyer signed Senate Bill 301 into law Monday.
The legislation applies when a pregnant patient experiencing signs or symptoms consistent with labor is discharged from inpatient care or observation status. It does not require hospitals to admit every patient who may be in labor, leaving the discharge decision to the documented clinical judgment of the treating health care professional.
However, when a patient is discharged, the hospital must provide a written plan intended to ensure the patient understands what to do next and has a safe way to obtain additional care.
“When a mother is in labor, ‘good luck’ is not a plan,” Meyer said. “Any pregnant woman who shows up to a hospital in Delaware should feel seen, heard and cared for until she and her baby are safe.”
The ceremonial signing was held at Josie’s Grace, a Newark-based nonprofit that provides maternal mental health support during pregnancy, after childbirth and during the transition to parenthood.
What hospitals must provide
Under the new law, a discharge plan must include:
Aftercare instructions and confirmation that they were explained to the patient, the patient’s representative or a caregiver;
An assessment of the distance and travel time between the patient’s primary residence and the hospital;
Verification that the patient has reliable transportation between the residence and hospital;
Identification of a backup hospital or facility where the patient could receive labor and delivery services; and
The clinical justification for discharging the patient.
The plan must be discussed with the patient, the patient’s representative or a caregiver and included in the patient’s medical record. If the patient or representative declines to participate, the hospital must document that refusal.
The legislation was sponsored by Sen. Marie Pinkney, D-Bear, and House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown, D-New Castle. It passed the Senate 20-0 on May 20 and the House 40-0 on June 24.
“As a nurse, I know that discharge is not simply the moment a patient walks out of the hospital; it is a critical part of their care,” Minor-Brown said. “A pregnant patient who seeks help because she is in pain or experiencing labor-like symptoms deserves to leave knowing what is happening, what warning signs to watch for, what steps to take next and when to return for immediate care.”
Pinkney said the measure is intended to address gaps in maternal care, including concerns that Black women are more likely to have their symptoms or concerns dismissed by medical professionals.
The Delaware legislation was modeled after the federal Women Expansion of Learning and Labor Safety, or WELLS Act, advanced in Congress by U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois.
The federal proposal is named for Mercedes Wells, an Indiana woman who gave birth along a roadside shortly after being discharged from a hospital while experiencing labor symptoms.
“From the first trimester to the fourth trimester, we want to make sure moms and families have the support they need to be healthy,” Blunt Rochester said. “The signing of Delaware Senate Bill 301 will save lives while building on the work we’re doing in Congress to end the maternal health crisis.”
Hospitals supported goal, questioned mandate
During the legislative debate, the Delaware Healthcare Association supported the bill’s patient-safety goals but took a neutral position because of concerns about placing additional clinical requirements into state law.
The association said Delaware hospitals already operate under federal emergency-care standards and other regulatory oversight and maintain protocols for responding to pregnant patients showing signs of labor.
It recommended that the state also collect and publish annual county-level information about births that occur while a patient is traveling to a hospital or unintentionally at home. Such reporting, the association said, could help determine whether inappropriate hospital discharges are occurring in Delaware.
The law’s unanimous passage suggests lawmakers ultimately viewed the additional planning requirements as a reasonable safeguard. Implementation will now determine how hospitals document transportation, identify backup facilities and incorporate the requirements into existing discharge procedures without unnecessarily delaying care.
TO GO BOX
Law: Senate Bill 301
What it does: Requires Delaware hospitals to create a documented discharge plan when a pregnant patient experiencing signs or symptoms of labor is sent home before delivery.
Required information: Clinical justification, aftercare instructions, travel assessment, reliable transportation and a backup labor and delivery facility.
Who oversees it: Delaware Department of Health and Social Services.
Delaware voters have multiple days to cast ballots before the Sept. 15 primary, providing greater flexibility and another opportunity to participate in decisions that often shape state and local government.
Early voting for Delaware’s 2026 primary election begins Wednesday, Sept. 2, and continues through Sunday, Sept. 13, with a two-day pause for the Labor Day holiday.
Unlike absentee voting, voters do not need to provide a reason for voting early. The process is essentially the same as voting on Election Day: Election officers verify the voter’s eligibility, the voter signs the electronic pollbook and then casts a ballot on an accessible voting machine.
A Delaware voter may use any early-voting center in the county where the voter lives. Voters do not have to use their assigned Election Day polling place during early voting. Delaware Department of Elections
When can I vote early?
Dates
Hours
Sept. 2-5
7 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sept. 6-7
No early voting
Sept. 8
7 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sept. 9-13
11 a.m.-7 p.m.
The primary election will be held Tuesday, Sept. 15. Election Day polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Delaware primary-election information
Who can vote in the primary?
Delaware conducts closed primary elections:
Registered Democrats may vote in the Democratic primary.
Registered Republicans may vote in the Republican primary.
Unaffiliated voters and voters registered with minor parties generally may not participate in either major party’s primary.
Not every voter will have a contested race on the ballot.
The regular deadline to change political parties for this primary was May 29.
There is a special exception for some voters automatically registered through the Division of Motor Vehicles who were not previously given an opportunity to select a party. Those voters may affiliate with the Democratic or Republican Party through Sept. 15, including at an early-voting center. Delaware voter-registration guidance
Voters should use the state’s iVote portal to confirm their registration and review their voting information before leaving home.
Where can I vote early?
New Castle County
Appoquinimink State Service Center, 122 Silver Lake Road, Middletown
Claymont Community Center, 3301 Green St., Claymont
Department of Elections Warehouse, 220 Lisa Drive, New Castle
Hudson State Service Center, 501 Ogletown Road, Newark
The Delaware Contemporary, 200 S. Madison St., Wilmington
Wilmington Police Athletic League, 3707 N. Market St., Wilmington
Kent County
BPOE No. 1903 Elks Lodge, 200 S. Saulsbury Road, Dover
Frederica Senior Center, 216 Market St., Frederica
Harrington Parks and Recreation, 114 E. Liberty St., Harrington
Wyoming United Methodist Church, 216 Wyoming Mill Road, Dover
Sussex County
Department of Elections Warehouse, 542 S. Bedford St., Georgetown
Department of Elections Warehouse, 200 Allen St., Seaford
Ellendale Fire Hall, 302 Main St., Ellendale
Fairfield Inn by Marriott, 19113 Coastal Highway, Rehoboth Beach
Indian River Fire Company Station No. 2, 25375 Banks Road, Millsboro
Laurel Fire Hall, 205 W. 10th St., Laurel
Margaret Rollins Community Center, 101 Adams Ave., Lewes
Millville Community Center, 32517 Dukes Drive, Millville
Roxana Fire Hall, 35943 Zion Church Road, Frankford
The Fairfield Inn location is designated for the primary only. Voters should confirm locations before traveling through the state’s official early-voting list.
What should I bring?
Poll workers will ask voters to show identification, and presenting it generally speeds up check-in. However, Delaware does not require photo identification to vote in state and federal elections.
A voter whose name appears on the poll list but who does not present identification may complete an Affirmation of Voter Identity and then vote.
Before going to the polls:
Confirm your registration and party affiliation.
Review your sample ballot.
Select any early-voting center in your county.
Bring identification if available.
Leave candidate clothing, buttons and other campaign materials outside the voting room.
Voters may bring children age 17 or younger with them. Cellphone conversations are not permitted inside the polling place. Delaware voting FAQ
Why participation matters in Delaware
Primaries can be decisive
In districts where one party has a substantial registration advantage, the winner of that party’s primary may enter the general election as the strong favorite. That gives primary voters considerable influence over who ultimately holds office.
Local decisions affect everyday life
Many primary ballots include candidates for the General Assembly, county government and other offices responsible for decisions involving state spending, taxes, schools, land use, roads, housing, public safety and business regulation.
Smaller elections magnify each vote
Delaware is a small state, and legislative and county contests involve much smaller electorates than presidential races. A relatively modest number of votes can therefore determine a nomination.
Broader participation produces a more representative result
When only the most committed political voters participate, a small portion of eligible voters may choose the nominees presented to everyone in November. Greater turnout gives candidates and elected officials a clearer picture of the priorities of the broader community.
Early voting removes Election Day uncertainty
Work demands, family responsibilities, illness, traffic and weather can interfere with Election Day plans. Voting early gives residents several opportunities to cast a ballot while allowing Election Day polling places to serve voters who need or prefer to wait.
Looking ahead to November
Delaware’s general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Every eligible registered voter may participate regardless of party affiliation.
2026 Delaware primary: Tuesday, Sept. 15 Early voting: Sept. 2-13, excluding Sept. 6-7 Who may participate: Registered Democrats and Republicans voting in their respective party primaries Where: Any early-voting center in the voter’s county Identification: Requested, but photo ID is not required Check registration:ivote.de.gov Official information:elections.delaware.gov
Pictured L-R – From Del-One, CIO Marc Kidwell, CBO John Chartrand, CXO Horacio Garcia-Korosec, President & CEO Dan McCarthy, and Joseariel Gomez-Ortigoza, Founder and CEO of Shastic.
Delaware’s largest credit union says its digital assistant reviews auto-loan documents in minutes, offering other businesses a model for adopting AI within their existing systems
DOVER, Del. — Del-One Federal Credit Union is using artificial intelligence to expand its auto-lending capacity without increasing its staff, offering a Delaware example of how businesses can incorporate AI into everyday operations.
The credit union has deployed an autonomous digital assistant named Valeria to review documents submitted by automobile dealerships through Del-One’s indirect lending program. The technology, developed by Shastic, works within Del-One’s existing MeridianLink lending platform.
Del-One said the system could help its two-person funding team increase indirect loan production from approximately $8 million to $15 million per month without hiring additional employees.
“With Valeria, we believe we can nearly double our indirect production, from $8 million a month to $15 million, without adding a single person,” said John Chartrand, chief operating officer of Del-One. “We want our people to think, not enter data.”
AI handles paperwork, employees make decisions
When an auto-loan packet arrives, Valeria reads the documents, creates a funding checklist and flags missing, incomplete or inconsistent information before a Del-One employee begins the final review.
The process takes less than 15 minutes per packet, according to the credit union. Del-One said Valeria has completed more than 500 reviews without clearing a defective packet.
The AI system does not determine whether an applicant qualifies for credit or whether a loan should be approved. Those decisions remain with Del-One employees. The technology completes repetitive document-review work and provides an auditable record of its findings.
The distinction is important as financial institutions and other businesses explore ways to use AI while maintaining human oversight of decisions affecting customers.
“The model here is that our best people manage exceptions, verification and strategy; the digital workforce handles the box-checking, staring and comparing,” said Dan McCarthy, president and CEO of Del-One.
Working within existing systems
Del-One’s approach illustrates how an organization can adopt AI without replacing its primary software systems. Instead of purchasing an entirely new lending platform, the credit union added the digital assistant to a system its employees already use.
The strategy also represents a shift from treating AI as a general-purpose tool to assigning it a specific, measurable business responsibility. In Del-One’s case, that responsibility is checking dealer loan packets for missing or conflicting information.
Del-One said it has deployed two digital assistants and identified other potential applications in lending, account opening and collections. Each would perform a defined back-office function while employees retain responsibility for decisions, unusual cases and member interactions.
A potential AI road map for other businesses
The experience provides a potential road map for other businesses considering AI. Companies can begin with a focused project inside their existing systems, while regional technology and business consultants such as Trellist Marketing and Technology can help identify appropriate processes, develop an implementation plan and manage the organizational transition.
“What Del-One is doing reflects a pattern we see across every industry right now,” said Maria Gunther, CEO of Trellist Marketing and Technology. “Businesses do not need to replace their core systems to get real value from AI. They need to give it a specific, well-defined job inside the systems they already run.
“The first step for most companies is not a big platform decision. It is identifying one repetitive, high-volume process where a person is currently doing work a machine can do faster, then keeping human judgment in charge of the exceptions and the relationships. That is how AI transformation actually takes hold in an organization — one clearly scoped responsibility at a time.”
Building a digital workforce one role at a time
Shastic describes that approach as building a “digital workforce,” with AI agents added one role at a time to perform defined back-office responsibilities.
“Every credit union is trying to figure out how to get real value from AI,” said Joseariel Gomez-Ortigoza, founder and CEO of Shastic. “Del-One has shown what it looks like in production: not one tool, but a digital workforce added one role at a time, on a platform they already own.”
The initiative could allow Del-One to process a larger volume of loans without increasing administrative costs at the same rate. It also could shorten the time between a dealer submitting a complete loan packet and receiving funding.
Del-One, founded in 1960, describes itself as Delaware’s largest credit union. Its mission is to create an easy and enjoyable banking experience in which convenience is combined with personal service.
Shastic develops autonomous digital assistants that perform lending-related administrative work within credit unions’ existing technology systems.
To Go Box
What: Del-One Federal Credit Union’s use of Valeria, an autonomous AI assistant that reviews indirect auto-loan packets
Purpose: Identify missing or inconsistent documents before a Del-One employee completes the funding review
Processing time: Less than 15 minutes per loan packet, according to Del-One
Human oversight: The technology does not make credit or loan-approval decisions
Projected impact: Del-One expects to increase indirect lending production from approximately $8 million to $15 million per month without adding staff
For businesses: Companies considering AI can begin by identifying a repetitive, high-volume process within an existing system while preserving human oversight
Learn more: Visit del-one.org, trellist.com or shastic.com/valeria-autonomous-loan-packet-reviewer
La Red Health Center will celebrate 25 years of expanding health care in Southern Delaware during an anniversary gala Sept. 24, while highlighting a mission that has become an important part of the Milford Wellness Village.
Community health center is a key partner in the Village’s effort to give Milford-area families coordinated access to medical, behavioral and dental services
MILFORD, Del. — La Red Health Center will celebrate 25 years of expanding health care in Southern Delaware during an anniversary gala Sept. 24, while highlighting a mission that has become an important part of the Milford Wellness Village.
The 25th Anniversary and Community Awards Celebration will run from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Hyatt Place Dewey Beach. The event will recognize the community partners, business leaders and supporters who helped La Red grow from a bilingual telephone referral line into a comprehensive health center serving more than 15,000 patients annually.
“This event is very special for La Red, we aren’t only celebrating the milestone of turning 25,” said Rachel Hersh, La Red’s President and CEO, “we are honoring our founders’ vision and the commitment of everyone involved that has led to La Red become a flourishing healthcare center that 15,000 people rely upon every day for their healthcare needs. It really is a testament to what communities can do when they work together.”
For residents of Milford and northern Sussex County, La Red’s work is visible at 21 W. Clarke Ave., where the organization operates as a key service partner within the Milford Wellness Village.
The Village brings more than 30 health, education and community-service organizations together on the former Milford Memorial Hospital campus. Its goal is to make care more accessible and coordinated by allowing residents to find multiple services in one location.
La Red plays a vital role in that model by providing a direct entry point into primary and preventive health care for children, adults, seniors and families — including people who may have difficulty obtaining care because of cost, insurance status, language or transportation.
A health care anchor within the Village
La Red moved its Milford Family Practice into the Milford Wellness Village as the former hospital campus was being redeveloped into a collaborative health and wellness center.
The move gave La Red room to expand pediatric and adolescent care, adult and senior services, women’s health, behavioral health and oral health services in northern Sussex County.
That combination makes La Red more than another tenant at the Village. It is one of the organizations helping the campus fulfill its central purpose: connecting residents with care in a convenient setting where medical providers, rehabilitation programs, laboratories, child care organizations and social-service agencies can work near one another.
“La Red was the first tenant to join the Milford Wellness Village and significantly enhanced its facility when it moved here, including the addition of a brand-new, six-chair dental center,” said Meir Gelley, founder and owner of Milford Wellness Village. “As a medical home serving uninsured and underinsured residents, La Red is a key component of primary care at the Village and plays a vital role in making quality health care accessible to the Milford community.”
The Village’s model is intended to reduce the stress of traveling to separate locations for medical appointments, testing, rehabilitation and support services. For patients with multiple health needs — particularly older adults, families with children and people
managing chronic conditions — having services concentrated on one campus can make it easier to remain engaged in care.
La Red contributes broad family health services to that network. Its Milford center provides adult and senior care, pediatric and adolescent care, women’s health and prenatal services, health screenings, treatment for acute illness and chronic disease management.
Services also include behavioral health care, dental care, substance-use disorder treatment, laboratory services, cancer screening referrals, HIV screening, diabetic retinopathy screenings and help obtaining affordable medications.
La Red’s presence ensures that the Milford Wellness Village includes a community health provider whose mission is specifically focused on reaching people who might otherwise fall through gaps in the traditional health system.
From hotline to health network
La Red’s story began before its formal incorporation in 2001, when it operated as a 24-hour telephone hotline. The service helped people with limited English proficiency connect with bilingual physicians who offered discounted medical care.
In 2001, a group of Sussex County physicians joined with a hospital, community center, faith-based organization and local government to establish La Red Health Center.
“La Red” means “the network” in Spanish, a name that reflects both its origins and its continuing reliance on partnerships.
The organization became an independent ambulatory care center in 2003 and later received full status as a Federally Qualified Health Center. That federal designation helps nonprofit, community-based providers deliver care in areas where residents may face financial barriers or shortages of medical services.
Today, La Red operates health centers in Georgetown, Seaford, Milford and a mobile health unit. It welcomes patients regardless of insurance status, income, language or background.
Care beyond an appointment
La Red’s role extends beyond examinations and treatment.
Bilingual community health workers, known as promotoras, help patients understand medical information and navigate the health system. Transportation assistance helps residents reach appointments, while the organization’s mobile health unit carries primary care, vaccinations and pharmacy assistance into Sussex County communities.
La Red also helps patients enroll in insurance programs, obtain medications and coordinate care among providers.
Its outreach includes support for people experiencing homelessness, individuals returning to the community after incarceration and businesses seeking employee wellness programs.
The Produce RX program works with local farms to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to patients in need. On-site services through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC, offer nutrition education and assistance to families at La Red’s Georgetown location.
Those programs support the same principle behind the Milford Wellness Village: Health is affected not only by what happens during a medical appointment, but also by whether a patient has food, transportation, information and access to continuing support.
Partnerships drive the mission
La Red works with hospitals, schools, nonprofits, businesses and government agencies across Sussex County. Its regional partners include Bayhealth, Beebe Healthcare, TidalHealth Nanticoke, the Delaware Division of Public Health and the Sussex County Health Coalition.
At the Milford Wellness Village, that collaborative approach is built into the campus itself. La Red operates alongside organizations providing rehabilitation, skilled nursing, child care, laboratory testing, mental health support and other services.
The arrangement allows La Red to serve as both a health care provider and a connection to a larger network of help.
The anniversary gala will recognize the people and organizations that have sustained that network during La Red’s first 25 years. It will also raise support for the health center’s future work, including its efforts to improve access and health outcomes for families in Milford and across Sussex County.
Individual gala tickets are $175. Sponsorship opportunities are available at several levels.
To Go Box
What: La Red Health Center’s 25th Anniversary and Community Awards Celebration
When: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, from 6 to 10 p.m.
Where: Hyatt Place Dewey Beach, 1301 Coastal Highway, Dewey Beach
Tickets: $175 per person · Registration: Tickets are available through the La Red Health Center gala page
Milford health center: La Red Health Center at the Milford Wellness Village, 21 W. Clarke Ave., Milford Appointments and services: Call 302-855-1233 or visit La Red Health Center
A picture of Salesianum’s preseason scrimmage against St. Joseph’s Prepatory School. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
The 2026 Delaware high school football season begins on September 3, and continues through December with the state championships scheduled for December 4 and December 5.
The 2026 Delaware high school football season starts in a few days with a matchup between Hodgson Vo-Tech and Howard Vo-Tech on Thursday, September 3. The KickOff Classic starts a three month regular season schedule that culminates in championship games in early December.
To get ready for the upcoming season, let’s recap what happened in the 2025 season:
2025 Class 3A Champion: Middletown High School
For the second year in a row, the Class 3A championship game featured a matchup between Salesianum and Middletown. The Middletown Cavaliers won the game, 28-14, defeating Sallies in the state title game for the second season in a row. It’s the program’s 10th state title.
Middletown scored all of its points in the first half, leading by three scores at halftime. Three of Middletown’s four touchdowns came through the air with senior Derian Cunningham connecting with three different receivers for the scores. The first connection was a 77-yard pitch and catch between Cunningham and fellow senior Darius Pope that opened the scoring in the first quarter and gave Middletown a lead it never relinquished. Junior Hanif Miller scored the Cavaliers fourth touchdown before halftime.
Middletown begins its 2026 campaign on September 3, at home against Tottenville High School from New York. Tottenville is the 46th ranked football team in New York, according to MaxPreps. Salesianum begins its season on the same day with a home matchup against Springside Chestnut Hill Academy from Pennsylvania. Springside Chestnut Hill is the 13th ranked team in Pennsylvania, according to MaxPreps.
A state championship game rematch will take place on October 30, at Cavalier Stadium.
2025 Class 2A Champion: Red Lion Christian Academy
Red Lion earned the program’s first football state championship with a double overtime win against Indian River last season. Similar to the Class 1A game this matchup was a nail biter that came down to the final plays.
After trading touchdowns and two-point conversions in the first overtime period, Red Lion opened up the second overtime period with a touchdown run from senior Judah Barber. The Red Lions elected to send out their kicker, sophomore Teigan Norris, for the extra point and his kick put them ahead by seven. The Indians responded via a Michael Peranteau touchdown run, but the team’s extra point attempt was no good. Red Lion won, 22-21.
Red Lion will begin their season at home against Smyrna High School on September 4. Indian River starts a day before, playing Odessa on the road on September 3. The two teams won’t play each other during the regular season which means a state championship rematch will have to come in the postseason. Last season, Red Lion started the season 0-2 before winning 11 straight games and the state title. Indian River was undefeated until the state championship game.
2025 Class 1A Champion: Seaford High School
The Seaford Blue Jays earned their first state championship in over three decades when they defeated the Newark Charter Patriots, 21-20, last season. The championship game was a close contest that was tied 14-14 at the end of regulation.
The Blue Jays started the overtime period on offense and scored the initial touchdown of the frame on a run by senior Vincent Evans. Senior Luke Metzner converted the extra point and gave Seaford a seven point lead. The Patriots answered via an Austin Gbadegbe touchdown run and decided to go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking the extra point. The Blue Jays stopped the Patriots two-point play and claimed the state title.
The Blue Jays will begin the 2026 season on September 3, on the road against AI duPont High School. The Patriots begin their season that same day against Christiana High School. The two programs will play a championship game rematch on October 23, in Newark.
Important Notes for this Season
The regular season begins on September 3 and continues until the end of competition on November 14. The playoffs will begin with quarterfinal matchups on November 20 and 21, semifinal matchups on November 27 and 28 and championship matchups on December 4 and 5.
The football classification system used last season is still in effect, though Caravel will not be competing in varsity football this season, according to Delaware Online. Caravel was a playoff team last year in the program’s first season in Class 3A.
To see a full breakdown of the football classification system click here.
Republicans added 10 candidates after Aug. 1, including eight during the final week before the deadline; Democrats added two
By George D. Rotsch, Editor, Delaware LIVE
DOVER, Del. — Delaware’s November ballot became considerably more competitive during August as the Republican Party nominated candidates for 10 offices that otherwise would have lacked a Republican contender.
Eight of those nominations were filed during the final week before Delaware’s Sept. 1 deadline for major parties to fill vacant ballot positions, according to the state Department of Elections.
The Democratic Party also made two late nominations, adding candidates for a Sussex County Senate seat and a New Castle County-area House district.
Brent Burdge, chair of the Northern DEGOP region where many of these candidates are running and a newly added candidate himself, stated, “Most of the candidates came forward to give voters in these communities real options in November. Incumbents and primary winners need to be challenged so voters can determine the future of their community. That’s how democracy works. These individuals are passionate about the neighborhoods and want to make a difference. They are knowledgeable about the community, local leaders, and understand the political process.”
“Contested elections allow voters to compare candidates, hear different positions and hold officeholders accountable,” concluded Burdge.
Republicans fill ballot vacancies
The 10 Republicans filed after Aug. 1 are:
Candidate
Office
Filing date
Status
Anton Brogden
State representative, District 31
Aug. 6
Qualified
David C. “Dave” Graham
Attorney general
Aug. 24
Provisional
April Callaway
Auditor of accounts
Aug. 26
Qualified
Brent Burdge
State senator, District 5
Aug. 26
Provisional
Tanya Hettler
State representative, District 6
Aug. 26
Qualified
Shane Stoneman
State representative, District 7
Aug. 26
Provisional
Dolores Dunleavy
State representative, District 10
Aug. 26
Qualified
Hildi Bachtle
State senator, District 1
Aug. 28
Provisional
Enala A. Mwashitete
State representative, District 16
Aug. 28
Provisional
Lisa McInnis
State representative, District 1
Aug. 30
Provisional
The Democratic Party nominated Harry S. Gold for the 20th Senate District on Aug. 25 and Tori Parker for the 11th Representative District on Aug. 28. Both are listed as qualified.
Several of the newly nominated Republicans will face Democratic incumbents or the winners of Democratic primaries. Graham, for example, is positioned to face the winner of the Democratic primary for attorney general, where incumbent Kathy Jennings is seeking another term.
Some November matchups will not be complete until Delaware holds its statewide primary Sept. 15.
A rarely used route to the ballot
Ordinarily, Democratic and Republican candidates file by the July deadline and advance through a primary if more than one candidate seeks the same party’s nomination.
State law provides another route when no candidate from a major party has filed for an office. Party officials may nominate someone to fill that ballot vacancy by submitting a certificate of nomination to the Department of Elections by Sept. 1.
The late nominees do not go through a primary because no other candidate from their party filed for the same office.
Delaware’s online candidate records indicate that this year’s Republican recruitment effort is unusually large. Eight Republican nominations were filed during the final week before the deadline. No Democratic or Republican organization matched that total in the state’s date-stamped candidate lists from 2010 through 2024.
The closest comparison came in 2016, when Republicans filed five candidates during the closing days of the nomination period. That year’s late additions included candidates for Wilmington offices and Kent County positions.
That makes this year’s group the largest final-week addition by either major party in at least 16 years. Records before 2010 available on the Department of Elections website do not contain filing dates, making a longer historical comparison difficult.
More candidates, but difficult campaigns
Late nomination comes with disadvantages.
Candidates entering near the deadline have little time to raise money, recruit volunteers, introduce themselves to voters and develop positions on complicated state issues. Some will be challenging incumbents who have spent years building name recognition and campaign organizations.
A name on the ballot, therefore, does not necessarily create a competitive campaign. The new candidates will still have to demonstrate that they are prepared to serve and capable of making a serious case to voters.
Their presence nevertheless prevents several races from being decided without a general-election contest.
Unopposed candidates can still be held accountable by the public, news organizations and members of their own party. But an opposing candidate creates a more direct test. Debates become possible. Policy differences become clearer. Voters can evaluate competing records and priorities before selecting who will represent them.
That is a basic feature of representative government: Elections work best when voters have meaningful choices.
Some candidates remain provisional
Several late nominees are currently listed as provisional by the Department of Elections.
Provisional status does not mean a candidate has been rejected. It generally means the state is reviewing residency documentation or awaiting the results of a required criminal-history background check.
Candidates listed as qualified have completed those reviews and have been determined eligible to appear on the ballot. The Department of Elections periodically updates the list as reviews are completed and additional filings are processed.
Minor parties also added candidates during August. The Independent Party of Delaware nominated Austin Cassidy for auditor of accounts, Carolyn Frank for the 5th Senate District and Steven Washington for the 1st Senate District.
The result is a November ballot with more contested races than Delaware voters appeared likely to see only a few weeks ago. Whether the late nominees can build competitive campaigns remains an open question. But in the districts where they qualified, voters will at least have a decision to make.
To-go box:
What happened: Delaware Republicans nominated 10 candidates after Aug. 1, including eight during the final week before the Sept. 1 deadline.
Why it matters: The nominations give more voters a choice between major-party candidates in November.
Historical context: It is the largest final-week group added by either major party in at least 16 years, based on Delaware’s available date-stamped records.
What’s next: Several nominees must complete state qualification reviews, while some November matchups will be determined by the Sept. 15 primary.
With the goldendoodle beside her during appointments, Lucy’s family began seeing a change. There were fewer tears, more smiles and a greater sense of calm during situations that previously had been filled with fear.
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