Davy Phockett

Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities - so long as they do it under the guise of “partisanship” rather than explicit “racial bias.” And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach. The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome. But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers - not just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level.

Everyone is better than Jalen Brunson until it's time to be better than Jalen Brunson

The main difference between Elon Musk and Scam Altman: Elon Musk actually changes the world for the better and saves lives: Tesla accelerates clean energy and has saved thousands of lives on the roads. SpaceX is making humanity multi-planetary. Starlink connects and saves millions in wars and disasters. Neuralink gives hope to the paralyzed. He pays a very heavy personal price for it — endless attacks, lawsuits, media smears, and a broken personal life. Scam Altman? He mostly just takes. His technology (ChatGPT) still struggles to genuinely help people with real problems — hallucinations, lies, and fabrications instead of real answers. He turned OpenAI from “for the benefit of humanity” into a profit machine. And the suspicious death of whistleblower researcher Suchir Balaji, who was highly critical of OpenAI, still raises serious unanswered questions. One builds the future and saves lives. The other takes the money and plays games.

The "3-2-1 lottery" proposal, named to represent the number of lottery balls per team, would expand the lottery from 14 to 16 teams. Teams that do not qualify for the playoffs or play-in tournament but stay out of the relegation zone (spots four through 10) would receive three lottery balls each. Teams with a bottom-three record -- the relegation zone -- would have just two lottery balls but have a floor of the 12th pick while the rest of the 13 lottery teams could fall as far as the 16th pick. The 9th and 10th play-in seeds in each conference receive two lottery balls each while the losers of the 7-8 play-in games receive one lottery ball each. In addition, no team would be able to win the top pick in consecutive years or be able to win three consecutive top-five picks. Teams also would not be able to protect picks in the 12 to 15 slots going forward.

NEW YORK (AP) — Ex-NBA player Damon Jones becomes first defendant to plead guilty in a gambling sweep that netted more than 30 arrests.