The Super Bowl is better with finger food, and chicken tenders are a prime candidate. If you want stadium-approved tenders at home, follow this advice.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
Month: February 2026
Politico cartoons from the desk of Matt WuerkerPolitics
Starbucks’ latest beverage launch is bright and berry-filled for Valentine’s Day. We sampled and reviewed them all to determine if they’re sip-worthy.
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
San Jose, Calif. — Seattle Seahawks kicker Jason Myers had known Sam Darnold since the time he entered the NFL as a rookie first-round draft pick by the New York Jets in 2018. So, when Myers learned Darnold had signed with Seattle in free agency, the two Southern California natives decided to connect a few weeks later for a round of golf at The Bridges Golf Course in San Diego to discuss their new squad. Myers soon discovered Darnold hadn’t changed much since entering the league seven years earlier. However, that resilience hardened through tough times over five NFL stops and led to a breakthrough this season for the USC product. Darnold’s been one of the primary reasons for Seattle reaching the Super Bowl again for the first time in 11 seasons. “It was not a shock when he walked into the locker room and clicked with everybody,” Myers told me. “That’s what makes Sam great — he’s the same person. Sam’s the same guy every day, no matter what the situation is.” Seahawks general manager John Schneider told me that during the offseason, Darnold committed to holding walk-arounds in the locker room — setting up one-on-one conversations with players to get to better know his teammates and build connectivity within the team. It’s a reason players didn’t flinch when Darnold struggled, publicly backing up their quarterback like Pro Bowl linebacker Ernest Jones IV’s profanity-laced affirmation of Darnold after he threw four interceptions in a midseason road loss to the Los Angeles Rams. “He has this self-awareness,” Schneider told me. “A team awareness through self-scouting. In the offseason, he really wanted to focus on team building — building relationships and continuity. “He has these walk-rounds, with guys getting to know each other. It’s the ultimate team sport. The Xs and Os aside, he really wanted to focus on 12 as One and what that means. And that’s guys playing for each other and loving each other up.” With an up-close look at Darnold’s relationships inside the locker room, quarterback Jalen Milroe echoed those comments from Schneider. “I did the same thing when I was at Alabama,” Milroe told me. “You’ve got to know your guys on the team. It takes all of us, and he understands that. He’s done a really good job of dealing with all the guys on the team, on offense and defense.” Darnold finished with a league-high 20 turnovers during the regular season. But undaunted, he played his best football in the postseason, completing 70% of his passes and throwing for nearly 470 yards, with four passing touchdowns and no interceptions, for a league-best 122.4 passer rating. “It’s just being true to who I am,” Darnold said at the podium at Opening Night. “I’m not trying to be anymore than that. I’ve never been much of a rah-rah guy, but if something needs to be said in front of a group, I’m not afraid to do that. “I think it’s just understanding who I am as a person. And I think over the past eight seasons in the NFL I’ve done a better job of continuing to learn myself in that way.” Former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck certainly knows what it takes to lead a team to the Super Bowl after joining a new team in the middle of his career. Hasselbeck helped the Seahawks reach Super Bowl XL 20 years ago, breaking through in his fifth season in Seattle. But Hasselbeck recognized that there are multiple ways a quarterback can rally a locker room around them, noting that he was a different type of leader than Darnold when he played in Seattle. “He just kind of seems like a golden retriever, where I’m probably more like an otter,” Hasselbeck told me. “With a golden retriever, you just need like one or two best friends, and you’re comfortable staying by them, having these intimate, deep conversations. “I’m a little bit more like, ‘Yo! Fire pit I my house tonight and everybody’s invited.’ Whoever shows up, shows up. And I’m going to kind of know all of you a little bit. And that’s going to be our normal deal. Who wants to play pick-up hoops? Who wants to play horse? Shaun Alexander and myself, we were the otters. And there were some beavers, there were lions — it takes all types.” While Darnold might be a golden retriever in his leadership approach, he might played like a lion in the NFC Championship Game. He threw for 346 yards and three touchdowns in the victory, and Hasselbeck pointed to that performance as another step in Darnold’s growth. “In the 49ers game, he didn’t throw for 200 yards and didn’t turn the ball over,” Hasselbeck told me. “But then he played in the NFC Championship Game, and that wasn’t the assignment. The assignment in that game is we’re going up against the MVP (Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford), with two amazing wide receivers and a tight end that’s a problem. We need you to cut it loose, but we still need you not to turn the ball over. “We need you to run, and if you get a 1-on-1 with No. 22 (Rashid Shaheed), take it. Anytime JSN (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) has a 1-on-1, take it. That’s the mindset. And he answered. It was like, just play free.” So, even though Darnold’s leadership style may be different, his teammates have been united in their support of him. Because of that, Darnold has served as a catalyst for why the Seahawks are playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday. “I don’t think one leadership style is necessarily better than the other,” Hasselbeck said. “But I think what I’ve seen from Sam, he doesn’t get too high, doesn’t get too low. He seems really genuine. And you can tell that the locker room really respects him and loves him.”Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Unfortunately, the best musicians aren’t always the best people.
Once again, Lizzo is reminding us all of that.
The latest release of Epstein files has been filled with horrors, typos, and already famous names.
But Lizzo is being vocal, accusing people of jumping to conclusions when it comes to the men in these documents.
In a now-deleted video, which you can see clips of below, Lizzo is voicing her clear disagreement with public condemnation towards rich, powerful men whose names appear in the Epstein documents.
Some of the moments are very broad — referring to the men and their names in general.
However, it’s clear that Lizzo’s primary point of contention is people who believe that Jay-Z committed sex crimes while in proximity to dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
What did it [Epstein Files] say Jay-Z did? He was there in 1996,” she challenged.
Lizzo then told her followers: “Come on, people, you are falling for it!”
Snippet of Now Deleted TikTok Where Lizzo Defends Jay Z Being in the Epstein Files
by
u/EDC2EDP in
DramaLlamaHQ
Lizzo’s rant continues.
“He referenced Jay-Z once,” Lizzo details, where he refers to Epstein.
“He was like ‘Oh, we can learn from Jay-Z’s business model,’” she characterized.
As Lizzo continued, she pointed out that many of these famous names are merely mentioned in discussions on financial advice, business plans, the eventual downfall of civilization, or politics.
“Where’s the crime? Focus,” Lizzo insisted.
“Just cause somebody’s name is mentioned in a three-million-document file of a person’s life who has lived over a span of crimes and decades,” Lizzo reasoned, “does not mean every single person is an accomplice.”
She has since deleted the video.
However, as you can see in another clip, below, she also chose to employ a bizarre analogy.
“If you stole an apple from Walmart and you were on trial for stealing an apple from Walmart,” she proposed. “Is every person in your phone an accomplice?”
Lizzo continued: “Is every every person in your phone, is every email you sent to a person or speaking about a person … does that make that person complicit?” Oh dear.
phoebe robinson makes it plain.
— Xavier D’Leau (@xavierdleau.com) February 4, 2026 at 6:41 AM
To clarify, stealing from a retailer is not akin to the rape of women and girls. For one thing, people are much more likely to face legal consequences for stealing from a corporation.
More to the point, stealing an apple is something that one does independently.
Obviously (we hope), many or even most of those who happened to appear in Epstein documents are not perpetrators or victims but simply people who had the relative misfortune of meeting one of the world’s most evil men.
But in addition to Lizzo’s absurd strawman argument, people are not reacting well that she’s going into defensive mode like this.
Defending Jay-Z might be fine, might be questionable. Broadly defending essentially all men whose names come up inevitably means that she’s going to bat for at least one monster. Perhaps that is why she has since deleted the video.
Creating good music is not synonymous with being a good person.
And being famous is not the same thing as having something of value to have to a discussion. It just means that more people hear what you have to say.
It’s only been a few years since Lizzo gushed over her admiration for Chris Brown. She has shown people what sort of person she is before.
We don’t like it. We’ve all tried to forget — because her music is good and because bad people have gone after her for all of the wrong reasons.
But, at the end of the day, this is a great reminder to not idolize celebrities — even those who at first seem admirable. They are human beings. And some of them are bad human beings.
Lizzo Defends Men Named in Epstein Files (Using Weird ‘Apple Thief’ Analogy) was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
Watching Super Bowl ads is half the fun of the big game, and Lay’s is coming in hot with an emotional ad from an Oscar-winning director.
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
Reading Time: 3 minutes
The latest tranche of Epstein files, released by the DOJ last week, featured repeated mentions of some very famous names, including Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates.
Earlier this week, Gates’ former wife, Melinda Gates, called on him to explain his involvement with Epstein.
And in a show of accountability rarely seen from men of his stature, Bill sat down with an Australian TV station to do exactly that.
Was he able to clear his name? Well, not exactly…
In an interview that aired on 9 News Australia today, Gates insisted that despite claims made by Epstein in an unsent email, he never had sexual relations with any of Epstein’s victims, nor did he conceal a sexually transmitted disease from his wife.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent,” Gates told 9 News Australia.
“The email is false. I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that.”
Gates says he met Epstein in 2011 and that he “only went to dinners” with him before severing ties in 2014.
He claims that Epstein lured him in with promises of assisting Gates in his philanthropic efforts.
“The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end,” Gates told 9 News’ political editor Charles Croucher.
“I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.”
Gates went on to double down on the claim that he never went to Epstein’s private island or attended one of his notorious sex parties.
“I never went to the island, I never met any women,” he said, adding:
“And so, the more that comes out, the more clear it’ll be that, although the time was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behavior.”
The Microsoft founder’s interview comes just one day after his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, told NPR that he “need[s] to answer” to his associations with Epstein.
“Whatever questions remain there of what I don’t — can’t even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me,” she said.
“And, I am so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”
It’s worth noting, of course, that Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, so anyone who interacted with him in the years that followed was knowingly carrying on a relationship with a child sex offender.
So even if Gates’ above claims are truthful, he still doesn’t come off looking very good here.
Bill Gates Admits to ‘Regrets’ Over Esptein Friendship, Denies Hiding STD … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
While Costco offers a wide selection of wine, expensive ones may not immediately come to mind. However, you may find this rare, storied brand among its shelves.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
Luke didn’t believe any of this success could happen for him. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Luke didn’t believe any of this success could happen for him. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country