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Pletcher closing in on 6,000 career wins ahead of Jim Dandy
Todd Pletcher hopes to get another win closer this Saturday when he saddles Renegade for the Jim Dandy Stakes.
With Blanche Nomination at Stake, Payouts to Trump Allies Continue
A seven-figure settlement is announced two days before a scheduled Senate committee vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general.
Blanche nomination in peril as key GOP senator rails on DOJ over controversial fund
Todd Blanche’s nomination to be President Donald Trump’s attorney general is hanging in the balance with a key GOP senator saying the Justice Department has not done enough to assure him a controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund won’t move forward.
What parents should know about ultra-processed toddler foods
More parents are beginning to scrutinize the foods they give their children early in life, and a new study suggests they're right to do so.
What’s being built, bought and planned in Ascension Parish
Here are the latest property transactions, issued permits and upcoming business-related events in Ascension Parish. Issued permits New construction for a 10,483-square-foot building at The Church International on La. 42 in Prairieville. The project is valued at $3 million, with Living Solutions Construction as the listed contractor. New construction permit for an 11,840-square-foot PEMB mixed-use […]
Nexus Mods New Boss Wants To Make Modding As Easy As Using Spotify
The new guy in charge doesn't want players digging around for hours on Reddit to get a Skyrim mod working
2026 MLB Odds: Bettors Backing Brewers To Win World Series, 'Miz' For Cy Young
Are the Milwaukee Brewers worth all the hype? Bettors certainly believe so. See the latest.
Blanche nomination uncertain as key GOP senator says DOJ ‘radio silent’ on demand to spike controversial fund
The fate of Todd Blanche’s nomination to be President Donald Trump’s attorney general is up in the air, with a key GOP senator indicating Tuesday he has not yet received the assurances he needs to vote in support.
4 out of 5 toddler foods are ultraprocessed. Nearly half fail to meet nutrition standards
Over 80% of foods marketed to toddlers are ultraprocessed, while nearly half fail to meet global nutritional guidelines, a new study found.
Senate Democrats Press Blanche on Times Subpoenas
Days before a committee vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general, Democrats demanded answers about the since-withdrawn subpoenas.
Chevron CEO ignores history, science and modern economic realities
Nostalgia for oil wells is an odd look.
Bill Oddie, wildlife presenter and star of British comedy series 'The Goodies,' dies at 85
Bill Oddie, a British comic actor who had a second career as as a bird expert and wildlife presenter, died on Saturday, his agent said, He was 85.
E-bikes, e-scooters are a burgeoning pediatric public health emergency
“Emergency departments across America report dramatic increases in serious injuries from e-bikes and e-scooters,” write CHOP’s J. Todd R. Lawrence and Madison A. Kesler.
LSU's National Championship Odds May Depend on One Overlooked Metric
The LSU Tigers have their eyes set on the ultimate goal this season.
Relocating CT scanners closer to ED cuts turnaround times with potential to save lives
Every minute saved improves patients’ odds of disability-free survival, experts involved in the analysis noted.
Science Made Ice Cream Better - And For Some, That's Worse
Nostalgia says things were always better when you were a child. Sometimes that is objectively true. McDonald's french fries were better, for example, before shoddy epidemiology and progressive
Bethesda Officially Confirms Brand-New Detail About The Elder Scrolls 6
In a recent statement, Bethesda's Todd Howard confirms a new feature fans can look forward to in The Elder Scrolls 6.
In Rush to Track Down Air Force One Leaks, DOJ Reversed Its Own Process
A judge’s remarks on subpoenas to reporters cast attention on two administration officials under consideration for powerful cabinet posts, Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton.
Blanche urged to investigate alleged foreign influence in fight against data centers
GOP lawmakers claim foreign-linked organizations tied to China and Russia are working to undermine U.S. data centers and AI infrastructure development.
The 10 weirdest spinoffs — and whether viewers tuned in
From Beverly Hills to Miami — and from comedy to supernatural strangeness — revisit some of the oddest spinoffs in TV history, including ‘Mrs. Columbo’ and the notorious ‘Baywatch Nights.’
1.3K views · 16 reactions | Sony Pictures Entertainment said that it...
Sony Pictures Entertainment said that it would reopen the Cinerama Dome, a Hollywood landmark, in 2028 after a renovation. Read more: https://nyti.ms/4x35CMZ
‘Seinfeld’ Star Apologizes For Filming ‘Inappropriate’ Sketch With Minor
Jason Alexander apologized after Stodden wrote on Instagram that her body “became part of an adult joke” during their 2012 skit when she was a minor.
2026 Best of Portland Readers’ Poll: Arts & Entertainment
Portland’s best in the arts and entertainment scenes, voted by you.
Bucs' Trotter Named Training Camp ‘Rookie to Watch’
As Todd Bowles faces a make-or-break season, second-round pick Josiah Trotter emerges as the heir to Lavonte David’s legacy in a revamped Tampa Bay defense.
2026 College Football Playoff Odds: Irish Heavily Favored To Make Field
College Football Playoff odds have hit the market. See which squads are favored to make the 12-team postseason tournament.
Scientists spot evidence of two huge companion stars that blew up
Unlike our sun, most of the largest stars in the cosmos are not solo acts, but rather are born together with another star in what is called a binary system, destined to spend their lives gravitationally bound in a cosmic marriage. But not even the best marriage — on Earth or in space — lasts forever.
2026 NFL Odds: Which Division Loser Can Go Worst To First?
Which last-place division finisher has a chance to reverse course next season? See the odds for if a team can go worst to first.
Browns offseason look back: 5 decisions that concern me
From Jared Verse to Todd Monken and Jim Schwartz, a few concerning Cleveland Browns offseason decisions.
Monkeys are surprisingly good at geometry
They may understand shapes as well as your toddler.
2026 NFL Odds: Which QB Will Lead League In Passing Yards, Touchdowns?
The odds say Joe Burrow is expected to have another dominant season under center.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
Switch 2 modding scene makes new breakthrough, but Nintendo safe from piracy
A new breakthrough was recently made within the Switch 2 modding scene, but Nintendo can rest easy knowing that piracy still isn’t an issue at the moment. You may remember that with the original Nintendo Switch, piracy became a major problem pretty early on. Significant vulnerabilities were discovered less than a year after the console launch. Nintendo was unfortunately unable...
"Professional lurker" Todd Howard reappears on internet forums following Bethesda's Fallout and Elder Scrolls announcements to thank fans for their support
Reddit is apparently a font of inspiration for Fallout and Elder Scrolls boss Todd Howard, and he's back being active there again.
Daily Dawg Chow: Betting odds, free agents, and more!
The latest Cleveland Browns news and notes from around the NFL in the July 20 edition of the Daily Dawg Chow.
Pirate Problems: Buccaneers 1st Divisional Matchup is a big One
After surrendering the NFC South crown to Carolina, Todd Bowles and the Buccaneers head to Charlotte seeking revenge and job security against a revamped, high-spending Panthers defense.
Citizen Scientists Helped Decipher How Harvestmen Became Oddly Devoted Dads
Paternal care is vanishingly rare in the animal kingdom, yet one spider relative pulls it off repeatedly across thousands of species. Unlocking why required a surprising shortcut that compressed decad...
Bethesda confirms 'Fallout 5' and 'The Elder Scrolls VI' are built on new Creation Engine 3 — Todd Howard explains the goal to give more power to devs and creators
We spoke to Todd Howard about the power of Creation Engine 3, and how Roblox has validated Bethesda's focus on independent creators.
Former NFL GM blasts Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers
A former NFL general manager isn't sold on Aaron Rodgers' Super Bowl odds in what's shaping up to be his final season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Liberal circuit judge blasts SCOTUS conservatives, says Hawaii will defy high court
Justice Todd Eddins accused the Roberts Court of reviving discredited 1857 and 1896 rulings while dismantling constitutional rights and democracy.
A Guide to All 'The Odyssey' Characters, Mythical Creatures, Gods and Goddesses
‘The Odyssey’ includes several characters, mythical creatures and gods portrayed by Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland and Zendaya, among others. Here’s a complete guide to all the characters in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey.’
Healey’s housing chief tells business leaders to push on new policies
Juana Matias urged the crowd at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce to advocate for more pro-housing policies.
Opinion | The ‘Devil’s Bargain’ at the Heart of American Politics Now
This week: the Todd Blanche hearing, Lindsey Graham’s legacy and progressive infighting.
Video: Opinion | The ‘Devil’s Bargain’ at the Heart of American Politics Now
This week: the Todd Blanche hearing, Lindsey Graham’s legacy and progressive infighting.
Weight-loss drugs may improve job prospects and dating odds for one group
A weight-loss specialist says GLP-1 results boost confidence in job interviews and dating, but the study found no clear improvement in well-being.
Cyclosporiasis, measles, air quality: Doctor reviews latest health news
Dr. Todd Ellerin joins NewsCenter 5 to review the latest health stories about cyclosporiasis, measles and air quality impacts from wildfire smoke.
Something odd about couples has puzzled scientists for more than a century
Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. Had I noticed something real or was it just the people around me? I set out to find out what the data had to say.
Todd Howard Dismisses 'Fan Chatter' About Purported Rivalry Between Bethesda and Obsidian as the New Vegas Developer Starts Work on a New Fallout Game
Todd Howard has dismissed what he described as “fan chatter” about a supposed rivalry between Fallout developers Bethesda Game Studios and Obsidian Entertainment.
Iowa health insurers propose premium increases for ACA customers
Iowa health insurance companies are proposing another round of premium increases for Affordable Care Act customers in 2027.
Fallout 5, Elder Scrolls 6 Game Updates From Bethesda's Todd Howard
Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard confirms "Fallout 5" is in the works and "The Elder Scrolls 6" is the studio's top priority.
Blanche meets with Epstein accusers after demand from Republican senator crucial to confirmation
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met Thursday with accusers of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following the demand by a Republican senator whose support is crucial to advancing his nomination to lead the Justice Department.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn appears on the fence about Todd Blanche’s nomination to be Trump’s attorney general
Cornyn, whose reelection defeat Trump ensured in May, expressed concerns during Blanche’s confirmation hearing about President Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund” – which Blanche helped craft as Trump’s personal lawyer.
Jon Jones Reacts to Conor McGregor’s UFC 329 Loss
UFC legend Jon Jones shared his reaction after Conor McGregor lost in the first round of his UFC 329 fight against Max Holloway.McGregor lost via first-round TKO when he buckled his knee against Holloway in the UFC 329 main event. Following the event, many fighters have shared their thoughts on what is arguably the most […] The post Jon Jones Reacts to Conor McGregor’s UFC 329 Loss appeared first on HEAVY.
Epstein survivor: Meeting with Attorney General Nominee Todd Blanche was ‘compulsive…he was forced to meet with us today’
Zendaya goes full Greek goddess on 'The Odyssey' press tour: An otherworldly winged gown, a gilded Zuhair Murad look and more
Zendaya's recent dresses, with their ethereal silhouettes, shield-like details and nods to classic Greek sculpture, have been nothing short of divine.
Instead of “Batman”, “The Odyssey” stars Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson bonded over odd tuna: ‘Mind-blowing how unappealing it looked’
And pizza. Lots of pizza.
Pistons Turn Down This Kings’ Trade Offer For Jalen Duren
Detroit Pistons and restricted free agent Jalen Duren continue to be at odds on a new contract. Duren, following a […]
2026 Open Championship odds, picks, date: Surprising predictions from golf model that's nailed 17 majors
Mike McClure's model has simulated the British Open 2026 10,000 times and revealed PGA best bets and picks for Royal Birkdale
Sen. John Cornyn undecided on President Trump’s pick for U.S. Attorney General
Cornyn is a key vote that could decide if Todd Blanche’s nomination moves forward to the full Senate.
What Blanche said about Trump, Epstein files during confirmation hearing for attorney general
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tried to assert his independence from President Donald Trump during his confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Blanche confronts questioning of deal for Trump at confirmation hearing
Blanche insisted the $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" was "not moving forward." But lawmakers raised concerns the Trump administration has yet to commit in writing that the fund is dead.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s Attorney General Pick, Faces Crucial Hurdle After Rocky Hearing
Even a single Republican “no” vote would block Mr. Blanche’s nomination from consideration by the full Senate, which could sink his confirmation.
Why Singing Is One of Sports' Most Enduring Rituals
Whether their team is winning or losing, people have an odd tendency to sing. Psychologists explain why.
Blanche says in Senate confirmation hearing he's 'restoring trust' in DOJ
Blanche is moving Wednesday to address complaints from Democrats that he has politically weaponized the law enforcement institution
State of Indiana to end minority and women's business contracting program
Gov. Mike Braun's announcement comes after Attorney General Todd Rokita issued an opinion stating that the Minority and Women's Business Enterprises program is unlawful.
Indiana Gov. Braun to end minority and women's business contracting program
The announcement comes after Attorney General Todd Rokita issued an opinion stating that the Minority and Women's Business Enterprises program is unlawful.
Trump administration live updates: U.S. launches daylight strikes on Iran
Get live updates and the latest news on the Trump administration as the U.S. strikes Iran, Todd Blanche testifies on his nomination for attorney general and intel chief nominee Jay Clayton appears at his confirmation hearing.
JPMorgan expands EMEA corporate banking business in latest push on regional rivals
By Lawrence White LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - JPMorgan has launched an expansion of its corporate banking business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as it seeks to grow income and claim market share from regional and domestic lenders, James Roddy, ...
Rundgren takes the stage at Twin River
Todd Rundgren has been making music for “close to 60 years,” and he’s still going strong.
JPMorgan expands EMEA corporate banking business in latest push on regional rivals
JPMorgan has launched an expansion of its corporate banking business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as it seeks to grow income and claim market share from regional and domestic lenders, James Roddy, head of global corporate banking at the U.S. lender, told Reuters.
Why Todd Blanche can expect a grilling at his confirmation hearing
The July 15 Senate hearing for attorney general nominee Todd Blanche could turn heated, as Democrats are set to grill the former Trump personal lawyer.
47 revelatory hours with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
To review this month’s supposed remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I must first correct the record. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced isn’t a game about pirates (and assassins) in the 18th century Caribbean. Sure, sure, that’s what the trailers would have you believe. They’ve go their clips of Edward Kenway swinging his swords and steering his pirate ship into cannon-blasting combat against British frigates. Is Resynced truly a pirate game? Of the 47 hours I spent playing Resynced over the past few weeks, I will admit I spent maybe 44 (?) of them collecting plunder with Blackbeard, drinking rum with Anne Bonny and debating the pros and cons of the lawless pirate-run settlement Nassau with Benjamin Hornigold. I may in fact have spent dozens of hours sailing to remote islands, reading treasure maps, opening messages left in bottles, sinking the odd Man o’ War with a well-timed broadside, collecting sea shanties for my crew, befriending a pet monkey, and hunting whales. I am nevertheless neither so Gullible nor so Narrow-Minded as to call the magnificent Resynced a “pirate remake.” Oh no. Forget any reviews of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced you may have read. Forget what you yourself may have played, if you’ve spent any time with the game since its launch. What Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is really about I’m here to give you the scoop (spoilers for Resynced’s Animus menu lore, which many players are probably not going to see): Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the new game whose development was led by Ubisoft Singapore, is set in the year 2096. It’s about a societal split, about revolution, about an old Assassin’s Creed adventure repurposed in the series’ distant future as propaganda or samizdat. It’s about the overheated future of 2096, essentially conquered by the series’ well-established nefarious Templar-run company Abstergo. (In this future, Abstergo is, among other things, remaking a 2013 pirate movie called Devils of the Caribbean, but this time in VR. The VR version will be backed by a marketing plan that involves AI influencers, a 10,000-avatar “metaverse premiere event” and that manufacturing of memes aimed at “50 million VR nodes.” See what I mean about Abstergo being evil?) Resynced is about a late 21st-century population mollified by the widespread use of Abstergo’s Animus devices which let people experience the lives of historical figures culled from “genetic memories.” It’s about an insurgent faction of Assassins. And it’s about a plan to wake the population into revolutionary fervor by showing them the memories of 18th century pirate Edward Kenway, who—as depicted in the original Black Flag and again in Resynced—gradually comes to an understanding about the Assassins of his day and their centuries old fight for freedom. Resynced is also about an AI developed within the late 21st-century Animus, called Ego. It has found a way to alter genetic memories, to create and show Animus users false ones. The game is about Ego’s efforts to tell the people experiencing Edward Kenway’s memories that Kenway was wrong, that fighting against order is folly, that we should crave a world where “compliance is rewarded with power.” Who are we in this game? We’re an unnamed Animus user in 2096 who experiences Kenway’s journey virtually. At four moments during Kenway’s exploits in the Caribbean our virtual jaunt can be interrupted for 10-15 minutes, as we explore Animus “rifts” where Ego explicitly tries to tell us how wrong Kenway was. None of this is what 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was about, of course. That was a different game, even if you also spent dozens of hours pirating as Kenway in that game, across missions and a map that’s been faithfully reintroduced and rebuilt for Resynced. The 2013 Black Flag was about you playing as an unnamed researcher newly hired in 2013 by Abstergo Entertainment, the video game development wing of the Templars’ evil-corp. In that game, you were assigned to use the Animus to dive into the genetic memories of Desmond Miles, a man who died in Assassin’s Creed III and who was descended from a long line of Assassins (and at least one Templar) whose adventures were featured across the prior AC games. In 2013’s Black Flag, your mission was to plumb the Edward Kenway experience for material that Abstergo could use in productions such as the motion picture Devils of the Caribbean, though the Templars had some ulterior motives for the assignment. Resynced is therefore not a remake of 2013’s Black Flag. It’s a sequel. It is a new game about a new exploration of Edward Kenway’s pirate/assassin journey, set 83 years after the framing sequences of the original game. Resynced provides a new narrative framework that, thanks to the concept of an AI that wants to alter historical memories, arrives with creative justification to tweak a now-classic 13-year old game. That makes Resynced, already a hot seller, a tantalizing hint of where Ubisoft could go with a line of Assassin’s Creed remakes. They could remake the first game, the Ezio games, even the recent ones set in ancient Egypt and Greece. And for each, they could not just modernize the graphics and controls but expand and alter their sequences of events to use them as reference points for a conflict set in the late 21st century, as rival factions try to weaponize historical memories. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, even when that work consists of ravings about Assassin’s Creed’s modern day plot, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe A story most players will probably miss If you didn’t know any of this, I’m not surprised. If you played the game and still didn’t catch it, I’m not a bit shocked. If Ubisoft has no plans to do more of this, I won’t fall down. Almost all of what I’ve described is optional and missable in Black Flag Resynced. I nearly missed it myself, as I planned for a breezy playthrough of an old Assassin’s Creed favorite. Instead, I found myself in a 40+ hour hunt for the “real” story, buried deeper in Resynced than any gold-filled chest. The story of 2096 is Resynced’s meta-story, told in two remote pockets of the game: 1) four optional playable “rifts” that players may find as they proceed through Resynced’s pirate fantasy , 2) in dozens of text files tucked three menus deep in the game’s barely-interactive Animus hub. Assassin’s Creed games have almost always had a meta-story about people in the 21st century (usually matching the game’s release year) and their connections to the main history portions you play. Those meta-stories have always been squeezed into the margins, though seldom as severely and as, uh, graphiaclly simple, as in recent games. Back in 2013, the modern-day exploits of you as an Abstergo Entertainment employee were prominent. They were portrayed via first-person portions that occasionally interrupted the third-person Kenway experience and could be explored for hours, complete with their own missions, side quests and puzzles. Resynced’s 2096 story—of Assassin “Watchers” vs. Abstergo/Tempar goons, of rogue AIs, of panicking scientists, of a woman wondering why her Animus-addicted husband is muttering about Mary Read (“What does he mean by Assassins?”), of a fight for the population’s hearts and minds via varying interpretations of Edward Kenway’s life choices—is mostly told through unlockable text files. The files are interesting. Offered via diary entries, intercepted chats and news reports, they present varied perspectives of a world in crisis. One set works as a narrative puzzle as it reveals the Rashomonic interpretations of a massacre, or was that a successful Assassin hit? Another favorite reveals the rising bitterness of a person who, through Edward Kenway’s journey, now shakes at the ignored evil around him. One surmises that Ubisoft is averse to putting the Assassin’s Creed’s meta-story in the way of more marketable pirate playgrounds and ninja/samurai epics. Instead, we get a better-than-nothing text-in-menus approach introduced in 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In Shadows, players unlocked the meta-story text files largely via time-gated missions that called on the user to kill X number of enemy type Y, clear three enemy castles, re-win a three-phase fighting tournament, and other grinds. Time restrictions on accessing these missions and unlocking the files meant it could take players months to access the full story in-game. But even in the most hardcore Assassin’s Creed hangouts, the fanbase instead seemed to throw up their hands rather than grind to keep up. In Resynced, Ubisoft has shown some mercy, diminishing the amount of new text files that are tied to timed grinds. Now, most of the text-based 2096 lore are associated with “data file” collectibles that players can find in the world. That includes a batch of written entries that explain a historical link between the feudal Japan era in Shadows and the piracy adventures in Black Flag. Players who explore a lot will find dozens of data files, though the game does not appear to offer any in-game tracker for finding each one. You just need to keep looking for them. As of this writing, I have most of them, but not all. I can’t find any full guide for them online. And even Ubisoft’s optional $5 microtransaction that reveals lots of items in-game does not appear to reveal the locations of the text files (at least the official description omits them from its collectibles list). That’s not a huge bother, because tracking the data files down compelled me to re-explore the waves and islands of Black Flag. That was a thoroughly pleasant task to do for the first time in a dozen years. I expect many players, though, will be content to wait for the files to be reproduced in an online AC wiki somewhere, the easier to read on a web page. It may not seem enticing to play a video game in order to gradually unlock pages of text to read. Why not, you may ask, just read a book, where they put the pages in order? For one, they’ve not tucked this latest installment of Assassin’s Creed’s meta saga in a book. I also enjoy the unordered delivery, the dawning comprehension of a story about 2096’s desperate people and questionable tech, which I glimpsed first at its middle, then the end, then the front, then other moments in between1. I am also enamored with the idea of the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve previously played, including Black Flag, being repurposed for an information war. The ideas in Resynced’s meta-story, which builds off characters and ideas in Shadows’ chunks of text, are strong. The potential of where they could go with it is exciting. As for the pirate stuff? Looks great, controls pretty well, is fun to play and oh so speedy in terms of how much of a good time you can have with each sit-down. It never gets old to chase a new shanty page across a rooftop, bombard a fort with upgraded mortars or use a diving bell to explore sunken wrecks (hats off to the team at Ubisoft Barcelona that worked on the underwater portions in Resynced; that team is now facing layoffs, such is the misery of modern gaming and oft-troubled Ubisoft). New pirate missions in Resynced involving new ally characters are brief, dramatic and add more to Edward’s story, even if the gameplay perks they provide barely enhance the gameplay. A new denouement for high-class pirate Stede Bonnet is affecting; a new hunt for Blackbeard’s treasure is a welcome extra moment. A new epilogue to hunt down a pirate killer, on the other hand, over-complicates Kenway’s character. The ending credits remain my favorite of any game I’ve ever played. Black Flag provides great source material. The revisit is well-made and a great sign of what could be. It is offered in a different wrapper that hints at an opportunity for more interesting remakes to come, should Ubisoft choose to pursue such treasures—and as we brace to resist or comply with an Abstergo future. 1 The messages that Edward Kenway finds in bottles tell another out-of-order story, one about a man reckoning with the strange memories and voices he’s heard in his head since he was a boy. That tale was also in the 2013 game and develops into one of Black Flag’s most compelling character arcs. In Resynced, it has lost its climax, because the bottle story previously paid off in the halls of the first-person Abstergo Entertainment, which is exclusive to the older game. An altered resolution, written by the 2013 game’s lead writer is fine, doesn’t invalidate the 2013 version, but makes for an inferior final note.
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