Crock-Pots are lifesavers in the kitchen, but how long can you expect your model to last? A Crock-Pot’s typical lifespan varies, but proper care is critical.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
Month: August 2026
Walmart-owned warehouse chain Sam’s Club is a big deal in its native U.S., but it gets a lot of love in this nation too, where the biggest location is found.
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
At Trader Joe’s, you can find unique, affordable grocery items in just about any section of the store, and this frozen seafood item is no exception.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Mary Peltola advanced to November’s general election for U.S. Senate in Alaska’s crucial race to determine control of the upper chamber.
Republicans are struggling to reverse the damage President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda has done with voters.
With less than 90 days until the midterm election, the Trump administration has sought to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials out of the headlines, pulling back on the high-profile, flashy raids in blue cities and minimizing public clashes with community members and protesters.
But new results from The POLITICO Poll show that half of Americans, including nearly a quarter of Trump’s 2024 voters, still say the president’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive. That’s virtually unchanged from polling numbers in January and April, amid mounting political outrage over federal agents killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Non-MAGA Trump voters are twice as likely as self-identified MAGA voters to say the president’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive — 31 percent compared with 15 percent, according to the new poll, which was conducted Aug. 8 to Aug. 12.
The persistence of that negative voter sentiment underscores a vulnerability for Republicans heading into November, as the party grapples with its message and policy approach on an issue the GOP once dominated. Immigration was a reliable winner for Republicans, with the party rallying voters around border security and public safety. Now, they’re struggling not only to convince persuadable voters, but also hold together their own coalition as it splinters over deportations.
“Voters really did want border security, but they did not want to see abuelita taken away because she’s been here for 40 years but without documentation,” said Arizona-based GOP strategist Barrett Marson.
The poll, conducted by London-based polling firm Public First, found a notable share of Americans believe the administration has shifted how it is conducting deportations following the fatal shootings, but that has not been enough to reverse Americans’ views of the administration’s deportation strategy.
A 56 percent majority of Americans say there has been at least a small shift in the way the Trump administration has been conducting its deportation campaign. But a plurality of those respondents, 44 percent, say the shifts have made no difference in how much they trust the administration on immigration. Thirty percent say the shifts make them less willing to trust the administration on immigration.
Among the 71 percent of Trump voters who said they’ve observed at least a small shift from the administration, nearly half, 48 percent, say those shifts make “no difference” in how much they trust the administration on immigration. Nineteen percent said the shifts make them less likely to trust the administration, while 29 percent said they’d be more likely.
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster in Washington, said that even with the lower-profile approach, the administration’s goal of increasing arrest and deportation numbers remains. That conflicts with what many voters broadly support: targeting immigrants in the country illegally who have committed crimes.
The lack of a change in voter sentiment is “not that surprising at all,” Ayres said. “It’s a lot easier just to go into an airport and find somebody who had overstayed a visa, had applied for an extension … and throw them into handcuffs and put them in a detention center. That’s the easy way to get the numbers up, and a great way to thoroughly antagonize public opinion.”
Another Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape, said Trump “ran on border security, and he’s following through.”
“But the visuals of wins are unfortunately overshadowed by the visuals of chaos,” the strategist said. “There’s no question that the wall to wall coverage of the chaos that follows ICE makes voters squeamish.”
The White House pointed to polling from this spring that showed that 80 percent of Americans support deporting unauthorized immigrants who have committed crimes, as well as a Department of Homeland Security press release that highlighted arrests of immigrants who had been accused of sexual assault of a child, forcible sexual abuse and drug posession.
“Americans sent President Trump back to the White House with a clear mandate to deport criminal illegal aliens. Every single day the Trump Administration is delivering on his promise to the American people to remove murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and gang members from American communities,” said White House spokesperson Lauren Bis. “Americans are grateful to the President for removing these criminals from their neighborhoods and for Making America Safe Again.”
The GOP’s stronghold on immigration as a campaign issue eroded soon after the president’s return to the White House. Soon, robust enforcement efforts led to viral images of arrests inside courthouses, at airports and on neighborhood streets. The backlash brewed for months, and peaked this year amid the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minnesota.
The White House moved quickly to contain the political fallout, sidelining then-Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and deploying border czar Tom Homan to ease tensions. The administration has since sought to avoid controversy on immigration ahead of the midterms, emphasized criminal arrests and changed leadership at the Department of Homeland Security. Since Markwayne Mullin took the reins in March, he has reversed contentious policies, including a plan to turn massive warehouses into detention facilities.
Still, some Republicans are particularly worried that the hardline immigration stance was hurting the party with key voting blocs, such as young voters, moderate Republicans and Latino voters. The president won 46 percent of the Latino vote in 2024, the highest share of any GOP presidential candidate in modern history, but these voters have grown increasingly concerned with Trump’s deportations policy.
Democrats, meanwhile, are highlighting the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics on the trail, betting that more voters are repulsed than grateful for the increased presence of ICE and other federal agents in their communities. Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who won the Democratic primary for Senate last week, used her victory speech to rail against her opponent, GOP nominee Michele Tafoya.
“Michele Tafoya was all in with Trump when ICE was terrorizing our neighbors,” she said.
Republicans, for their part, are fractured over the path forward, as immigration hawks battle with wary moderates who are pushing for a targeted focus on criminals.
Not only are non-MAGA voters more likely than MAGA voters to say Trump’s mass deportations campaign is too aggressive, there’s also a stark divide in how each faction supports the goals and implementation of his immigration agenda, The POLITICO Poll found. Nearly two-thirds of MAGA Trump voters — 64 percent — say they support both the goals and implementation of his deportations campaign, compared to just 35 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters.
The president’s MAGA supporters and immigration hardliners have argued that the administration is going soft on the president’s mass deportation vow, potentially turning off the far right base at a time when the party can’t risk a lull in turnout.
The split flared up last month when Mullin temporarily paused some ICE vehicle stops — a tactic the agency was using to increase arrest statistics — after two ICE-involved shootings during vehicle stops in Texas and Maine. While some Republicans welcomed Mullin’s response, the president’s MAGA supporters portrayed it as weak.
“We are being betrayed in real time,” conservative commentator Tomi Lahren said on X at the time. “If you want Trump voters to stay home in November, keep this up Markwayne and co.”
The president, after online pushback, reversed the DHS order.
Politics
The latest news and information from your Alaska news station.
Curious about programmatic SEO on WordPress? Learn how it works, what Google’s scaled content policy means for you, and a realistic 6-step workflow to try it.
The post Programmatic SEO for WordPress: An Honest Guide (2026) appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
Categories
Matt: Surprise DM
When I saw the Slack notification preview, “Matt, I’m literally crying right now,” I must admit my first reaction was “Oh no, what happened…”
Matt, I’m literally crying right now. I just read the Baby & Caregiver Attendance policy that Automattic will fly your baby and whoever is caring for them to be with you at a meetup while you’re breastfeeding.
Everyone talks about closing the gap for women in the workforce after kids. This is the first time I’ve seen a company actually pay for the answer.
I don’t think you hear this enough, so I want to say it plainly: thank you, THANK YOU. Forever grateful.
Stephanie Ospina also posted about it on LinkedIn. This benefit isn’t even on our public benefits page! From our Field Guide post revisions I found it was added in 2018 by Ingrid Miller of our Human Wrangling team, and it’s a great example of the care and effort they put into shaping what we call the Automattic Operating System.
Voters line up on Aug. 17, 2026, at the early voting station set up in Anchorage’s Midtown Mall. Voters reported waiting about an hour to cast their primary election ballots. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
This article is developing and will be updated.
Early tallies from Tuesday’s statewide primary election showed overwhelming support for a ballot measure that will restrict the amount of money that political candidates can accept from groups and individuals.
With 324 of 403 precincts reporting by 12 a.m. Wednesday morning, Ballot Measure 1 had the support of 71.9% of participating voters.
That’s only slightly less than the 73% margin that a similar ballot measure received in 2006.
The limits imposed by that 2006 measure remained in place until 2021, when a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Alaska’s limits on campaign contributions were so tight that they violated the First Amendment.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration declined to appeal that decision, and the state’s 2022, 2024 and 2026 elections have taken place without limits on the amount of money that candidates may accept.
A poorly funded group called Citizens Against Money in Politics gathered thousands of signatures to put a measure on the ballot. The Alaska Legislature passed a substantially similar bill this year, but Dunleavy vetoed it, clearing the way for the measure to appear on the August primary ballot.
Vote-counting is expected to continue through Aug. 28, the deadline for mailed absentee ballots to reach the Alaska Division of Elections.
Barring legal challenge, the measure would take effect after this year’s elections.
When enacted, the new law would prohibit political donors from giving a candidate more than $2,000 per election. Groups would be allowed to give no more than $4,000 per candidate per election.
Both limits would be adjusted for inflation every 10 years, and they will only apply to state-level elections — for governor, state House and state Senate.
Candidates themselves would still be allowed to spend as much of their own money as they want on their own campaign.
Federal elections — those for President, U.S. Senate and U.S. House — operate under different limits in federal law.
The measure does not affect the amount of money that can be spent by groups operating independently of candidates’ campaigns.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that limiting those groups amounts to restricting their free speech.
Also this year, the Supreme Court ruled that political parties may spend unlimited amounts of money in conjunction with candidates for federal office. That decision does not directly affect state candidates but could implicate them in the future.
U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III, a Republican running for re-election, waves to a passing motorists on Aug. 18, 2026. Next to him is Julie Sullivan, the wife of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, another Republican running for re-election. Supporters of both incumbents were holding signs at the intersection of Northern Lights Boulevard and the Seward Highway in Midtown Anchorage. Tom Begich, a Democrat and Nick Begich’s uncle, is running for governor and was rallying that morning at the same intersection, but on the other side of the street. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
This article is developing and will be updated.
Early vote counting in Alaska’s statewide, top-four primary election showed no surprises in the state’s two federal races.
For U.S. Senate, Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola led a 16-candidate field with 324 of 403 precincts reporting results as of 12 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Peltola had 47.8% of the votes counted to that point, while Sullivan had 43.3%. Republican challenger Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg was in third with 2.5%, and Democratic candidate David Leslie was in fourth with 1.1%, only slightly ahead of Republican Gerald Heikes.
In the U.S. House race, which had 15 candidates, incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich III had 46.2% of the votes counted by 12 a.m., while independent challenger Bill Hill had 31.1%. Democrat Matt Schultz, who suspended his campaign in July to back Hill, had 8.1%, and federal inmate Eric Hafner, a Democratic candidate, had 3.8%.
National Democrats have focused on Alaska’s federal races as they attempt to win control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections. National Republicans are also spending heavily to defend the incumbents. Control of the House and Senate depend on a relative handful of seats nationally, and Alaska’s delegation could be a decisive factor.
Vote-counting is expected to continue through Aug. 28, the deadline for mailed absentee ballots to reach the Alaska Division of Elections.
Candidates who finish in the top four may also withdraw from the election until Aug. 31. If a candidate withdraws, their position is taken by the fifth-place finisher. If two candidates withdraw, the sixth-place finisher is also promoted.
While Peltola and Begich appeared to be on course to win the most primary-election votes, primary success doesn’t always mean success in the November general election.
Two years ago, then-incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola earned almost 51% of the vote during that year’s pick-one primary, outpacing all Republican candidates combined. In the general election, the result flipped and Begich III defeated Peltola.
After the polls closed Tuesday night, Sullivan joined supporters at a campaign event at the Alaska Aviation Museum in Anchorage. He expressed gratitude for the support and touted his record in the Senate.
He pointed to shepherding federal funds to Alaska for the U.S. Coast Guard, military, and oil and gas development in the North Slope, as well as supporting tax cuts enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“I am proud of my record as your U.S. Senator,” he said. “When I ran in 2014, I talked about getting big things done, historic things done, for our state, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said.
While Sullivan did not mention President Donald Trump by name, he praised the success of Republican policies.
“D.C. Democrats don’t have an agenda or a vision for Alaska. They have a target on Alaska, and we’re not going to let them do it,” he said.
Sullivan criticized campaign spending from outside of Alaska to support his main challenger, Peltola.
“My opponent, the Democrat, she’s got unlimited money from Lower 48 billionaires and millionaires, and, you know, who the hell ever,” he said. “We don’t have that money, right? But we got you, and we’re going to win the general election with you.”
Across town, Peltola supporters gathered at a campaign event at a downtown Anchorage brewery, where she arrived just after 9 p.m. to applause from the crowd. She began by acknowledging she worked well with her opponent, Sullivan, when she served as Alaska’s sole U.S. House Representative, but said he was no longer working for Alaskans.
She cited his support of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which fired federal employees, and his votes to defund public media and support the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid over the next decade.
“We have tens of thousands of Alaskans who can no longer afford health insurance, and we are getting crushed by corporate greed,” she said. “Dan Sullivan, every single vote, votes along with corporate greed. He is there for every fat cat in the nation.”
Peltola criticized the overrepresentation of millionaires and billionaires in Congress. “Half of Congress does not reflect their electorate. This has to change. We’ve got to get working people, regular people, in worrying about regular people,” she said.
She thanked her supporters and some 10,000 volunteers for her campaign and said the focus now is on the general election.
“I am so glad that the primary is now behind us. It’s a real campaign now. We are really in this,” she said. “There’s still 77 days left till November 3, and we are now in 5th gear overdrive.”