Four-time Pro Bowl running back Cordarrelle Patterson was arrested over the weekend on charges stemming from an alleged domestic dispute with his wife that left her bruised.
Patterson's wife told police that the former return specialist grabbed her hair and left arm, leaving her fearing for her children's and her own safety, TMZ reported, citing an arrest warrant.
Officers came to the house and found bruising on her arm, TMZ said.
The 35-year-old was the 29th overall pick out of Tennessee in 2013 to the Minnesota Vikings, where he spent four seasons. He then spent time with the Oakland Raiders, New England Patriots, Chicago Bears, Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Patterson is the all-time leader in kick returns for touchdowns with nine. He's led the NFL three times in yards per return and has been a First-team All-Pro returner four times, most recently in 2020 with the Bears.
Republicans have had their share of good and bad election nights this century, but they’ve usually been able to count on the heartland.
Once evenly divided, rural voters have become substantially more Republican over the last two decades. Nearly two-thirds of these voters backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
Today, just under half of rural voters say they’ll support the GOP again in November.
Like other groups, rural Americans are concerned about paying the bills. Nineteen percent said the rising cost of living is their biggest economic problem in a recent survey, with gas and energy costs not far behind.
The Trump administration has, in part, tried to counter those anxieties by talking about job growth and the AI boom, but rural voters are frustrated about those issues too.
Less than a quarter of rural voters say the economy is in good shape, and unemployment is a focal point: 8% called a lack of jobs and unemployment their biggest economic issue, and only 28% thought there were good or excellent job opportunities in their communities.
Data centers are part of the story too. Only 2% called it their biggest economic problem, but that number is larger than it seems. For 1 in 50 rural voters, data centers are a bigger problem than housing, the cost of living, or getting a job.
These factors have put the Republicans in a tough spot all over the map.
They are a reason why heartland states like Ohio and Iowa have been competitive most of the year and why more rural districts, including some that Trump won by double digits, are becoming margin-of-error races.
Even setting the polls aside, there are signs that the rural vote is on shakier footing. TV viewers in Wyoming will see ads this week for Republican candidate Chuck Gray that don’t mention Trump or the GOP. Two years ago, Trump won 71.6% of the vote there — his best performance in any state, in any election.
Low rural turnout or party switching would make many races closer than the GOP would like, including in Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina.
Four states are worth singling out thanks to another complicating factor.
This year, prominent independent candidates are running for Senate against a Republican in four rural-heavy states: Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota.
They are pushing anti-establishment policies like congressional term limits and lobbying bans and have a heavy focus on corruption, the top voter concern in last week’s Fox News poll.
And all four say they won’t caucus with either party or would form their own independent caucus if they were elected.
With the Democratic brand still relatively weak around the country and abysmal in these states, the party has stepped out of the race entirely in three of the four (in Montana, a Democrat is staying on the ballot, though support for her has declined).
Normally, frustrated partisans stay home in scenarios like these, leaving the incumbent party to win by a more modest margin. This year, those voters have the ability to turn out for a different candidate, so the margin may get narrower.
All these states have been competitive over the last decade or so. Former Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, held on to his seat in Montana in 2018; Republicans have scored single-digit victories in South Dakota and Nebraska (where the same independent is running again this year), and even Idaho had a gubernatorial race that came within 15 points back in 2014.
These states could be close again.
In this week’s Power Rankings, two gubernatorial races get more competitive as the final two weeks of campaigning begin.
Florida
The Sunshine State is the beating heart of the "MAGA" movement. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis have posted stronger results each time they’ve run, with the latter winning his last re-election bid by nearly 20 points.
Thanks in part to those performances, Republicans have carved out structural advantages, including a 1.5 million registered voter gap and a resilient get-out-the-vote operation.
But DeSantis’ first win came within around 30,000 votes (or 0.4 points) and in a similar environment to the one we’re in now.
Here, Hispanic voters will play an outsized role, and polls suggest that a large chunk of them have shifted away from the GOP. In last week’s national Fox survey, 31% of Hispanic voters said they preferred the Republican candidate over the Democrat. That’s down 12 points from their support for Trump in 2024.
The Republican candidate, Rep. Byron Donalds, will be pleased to have the endorsement of DeSantis. He remains popular in the state. Donalds still has the edge against Democrat and former Rep. David Jolly, who is hoping former President Bill Clinton can shore up his support when they appear together for the first time today.
Still, this race is no sure thing for the GOP. Florida moves from Likely R to Lean R.
Nebraska
In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen is looking for a second term in office. He cruised to victory the first time with a 23-point win, but with both suburban and rural voters wavering on Trump this cycle, this could be a tougher battle.
Three other factors are playing a role.
First, the presence of Dan Osborn, one of the four notable independents on the ballot in Senate races this year, could boost Democratic turnout for challenger Lynne Walz in a governor’s race that would otherwise attract less attention.
There’s Pillen himself, who has faced some local pushback over a 5% budget cut and hiring freeze within state government.
Finally, the ballot, which will feature third-party challenger Brett Lindstrom, a former state lawmaker who lost to Pillen in a Republican primary four years prior. He’ll appear on the ballot as an "America First" candidate. The party was founded in July.
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has offered a detailed explanation and a fresh apology after the Instagram account of the No Kings movement was suspended for several hours during nationwide rallies for suspicious behavior driven by AI usage. Leftists including Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who were silent for more than a decade of Meta censoring conservatives suddenly are expressing alarm about censorship.
Leftists showed up for "No Kings" protests on Saturday in areas across the United States to encourage people to vote early as the November midterm elections approach.
Nearly 3,000 events nationwide urged voters to cast ballots early ahead of November 3 elections that will determine control of Congress.
The No Kings movement held nearly 3,000 rallies and marches across the United States on Saturday, urging voters to cast their ballots early in the November 3 midterm elections, as the Trump administration intensified its efforts to challenge mail-in voting and scrutinize ballots cast by suspected noncitizens.
The nationwide mobilization, held under the slogan “No Kings: Vote Early,” drew millions of participants, according to USA Today, with events in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The demonstrations came two weeks before elections that will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
Organizers said the campaign aimed to turn mass mobilization into electoral participation by encouraging voters to make voting plans, cast their ballots early and help protect every eligible vote. They argued that historically high turnout would make it harder for the Trump administration to challenge the results by alleging fraud.
“Across thousands of events in all 50 states and DC today, we are turning enormous people power into direct voter power,” the No Kings Coalition said in a social media statement. It described the initiative as a nationwide effort to encourage early voting and build a network of Americans prepared to defend eligible ballots.
Text Reads: Demonstrations in Washington, U.S., under the slogan “No Kings: Vote Early,” seek to channel political protest into electoral participation. They call for placing limits on President Trump and protecting the Constitution ahead of the elections.
The coalition also pointed to the rising cost of groceries, gasoline, electricity and other daily necessities, arguing that decisions made by political leaders directly shape families’ lives and economic prospects. It presented the early-voting campaign as the next step in reclaiming political influence after a year of mass demonstrations.
In Atlanta, city council member Michael Julian Bond urged rally participants to encourage others to vote before Election Day rather than wait until the last minute.
“The Constitution gives you a power. That is the power of the vote,” Bond told the crowd.
In Phoenix, Arizona, Democratic Senator Rubén Gallego linked the campaign to opposition to the Trump administration’s policies, accusing the president and congressional Republicans of worsening economic conditions for ordinary Americans while enriching their allies.
“Today, we voted early to send a message loud and clear: no to separating our families, no to corruption, no to no oligarchs, no to stupid forever wars, and no kings.,” Gallego wrote on X.
Today, we voted early to send a message loud and clear: no to separating our families, no to corruption, no to no oligarchs, no to stupid forever wars, and no kings. https://t.co/qtT9Gp7Lwf
Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari, who also attended the Phoenix rally, called the upcoming election “the most important election of our lives.” She cited the administration’s deportation policies, the war in Iran, cuts to health care and food assistance, and widespread corruption allegations as central issues facing voters.
Ansari questioned whether Americans would accept immigration enforcement practices that frighten communities and separate families, policies that leave millions without health care, or what she described as a transfer of wealth from working people to billionaires.
The protests unfolded amid heightened political tensions over Trump’s deployment of military personnel to several cities governed by Democrats. The administration has justified the deployments as a way to combat crime and support immigration enforcement operations.
The demonstrations were backed by a broad coalition of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Federation of Teachers, Black Voters Matter Fund, Indivisible, MoveOn, Public Citizen, State Voices and Voto Latino.
The push for early voting also came as the Trump administration pursued legal action against mail-in ballots. Trump has repeatedly attacked mail voting and continued to claim, without evidence, that electoral fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.
On Thursday, the administration sued California election officials, asking a judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots in the midterm elections cast by people the federal government considers likely to be noncitizens until their immigration status can be verified.
On Friday, the Justice Department warned local election officials that processing and counting ballots submitted by suspected noncitizens could expose them to criminal investigations and prosecution.
Also on Friday, Democratic Senators Alex Padilla of California, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dick Durbin of Illinois wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche, demanding assurances that the Justice Department would not seize ballots or other election materials before the midterm results were certified.
Mientras Trump volvía a usar la criminalización de la migración para infundir miedo sobre el voto demócrata, miles de mítines y marchas de No Kings en EE.UU. llamaban al voto anticipado para lograr una participación masiva que haga difícil al mandatario republicano recurrir a su usado alegato de fraude.
Most of us can rattle off Europe’s great royal houses: the Bourbons, the Habsburgs, the Plantagenets, the Stuarts, the Romanovs, the Windsors. Far fewer people have heard of the House of Oldenburg, yet few families have left a deeper or longer-lasting mark. Through a long chain of marriages, the Oldenburgs spread across the north of […]
On 26 August 1346, English and French armies met at one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years’ War: Crécy. Edward III’s English army crushed the French army of Philip VI. The defeat was so complete that it allowed Edward to lay siege to Calais and tilt the whole war in his favour. […]
In the first quarter of the 11th century, a force of Kievan Rus’ warriors sailed for Constantinople hoping to join the Varangian Guard — the Byzantine emperor’s elite personal bodyguard, foreign troops trusted precisely because they had no stake in local politics, not unlike Rome’s Praetorian Guard centuries earlier. The city turned them away at […]
Danish archaeology is facing one of the most unique discoveries of the last decade in the field of ancient Nordic clothing. During the excavation at the site known as Skonager (ARV 661), carried out near Varde, in the heart of Western Jutland, a team of archaeologists has located a female tomb from the Viking Age […]
Login
