Election Day is today, and the handful of races we’re watching will impact everything from the 2026 midterms to the 2028 presidential cycle. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The Daily Wire will have coast-to-coast coverage from now until the last race is called. From East Coast gubernatorial battles to West Coast redistricting fights, you can count on us to bring up-to-the-minute insight on the polls, the candidates, and voter turnout on our site and Election Day Liveblog. To kick things off, here’s everything you need to know about the races we’ll be watching. Virginia Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is running against former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. Republican John Reid is running against Democrat Ghazala Hashmi for Lt. Gov., and Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares is running against Democrat Jay Jones. Vrginians will also elect members to the Virginia House of Delegates, which currently has a 51-48 Democratic majority. The races have focused largely on issues such as immigration, education, taxes and public safety. Many polls show Spanberger leading Earle-Sears, and the Attorney General’s race as a complete toss-up. However, the attorney general’s race became the focal point of the statewide races after Jones was revealed to have sent text messages suggesting violence against former Republican House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert in 2022. “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,” Jones wrote in one of the texts. Jones has since apologized for the comments, but the controversy led to questions about whether Spanberger would still back Jones. Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to DailyWire.com/Subscribe to join now. “We are all running our individual races,” Spanberger said during a debate when asked if she was still backing Jones. Speaking to The Daily Wire on the eve of the election, Earle-Sears pitched herself as the common sense candidate, and predicted she would carry the state because voters crave safety and security. She also slammed Spanberger for attempting to run as a moderate while voting with the extreme wing of the Democrat Party while in Congress, and for refusing to denounce Jones and pull her endorsement. “Abigail Spanberger cannot be governor,” she said. “She’s politically calculating and cunning. I used to think it was cowardice but I see now, no — she wants power, she wants control, and so she refuses to say the right thing which is to tell Jay Jones to get out of the race.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the state in 2024, and former President Joe Biden won it in 2020, but Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Earle-Sears and Miyares won in 2021. New Jersey Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli are in a tightening race to replace Democrat Governor Phil Murphy. Ciattarelli ran against Murphy in 2021 and came close at 48% to Murphy’s just over 51%. President Donald Trump has vocally endorsed the Republican, including calling on the Orthodox Jewish community to back him over the weekend. “I need ALL of my supporters in the Orthodox community in Lakewood and its surrounding towns to vote in HUGE numbers for Jack Ciattarelli. Jack will be a GREAT Governor, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement — He will never let you down!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Jack needs every single Vote in the community, including all the Yeshiva students who turned out to vote for me last year. Your Votes in this Election will save New Jersey, a State that is near and dear to my heart,” he added. In a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Wire, Ciattarelli said that “people want change across the state,” and he’s the answer, pledging to reduce energy prices, restore public order by cracking down on crime, and roll back New Jersey’s sanctuary state policies. As for Sherrill, one of her key campaign points is to declare a state of emergency in hopes of “freezing” utility rate increases. Ciattarelli has scrutinized the idea, instead proposing ending the state’s participation in a carbon tax as a way to lower bills for New Jerseyans, according to the New Jersey Monitor. New York City The New York City mayoral race has become a national phenomenon with the three-way contest between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary but is now in the race as an independent. More than 735,000 New Yorkers have turned out for early voting, marking a record turnout. The Daily Wire’s Jennie Taer has a helpful breakdown of the latest polling here. Polling has consistently shown Mamdani ahead, and he’s become known for socialist policy proposals including freezing rent, grocery stores owned by the local government, and scrapping bus fares. According to his platform, he also wants the minimum wage in the city to increase to $30 by the year 2030. As for Cuomo, the campaign has served as an attempt at a political comeback following his resignation over sexual harassment allegations in 2021. His successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, has backed Mamdani instead, as Trump said in a “60 Minutes” interview that he’s “not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it’s going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m going to pick the bad Democrat all the time to be honest with you.” As for Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder has campaigned on cracking down on crime and housing policy reforms. “My plan to save NYC starts day one. I’ll make city agencies work efficiently to keep communities safe, clean, and affordable. I’ll fund every precinct to lower crime, improve schools, protect the SHSAT, and lower the cost of living. I’ll be the mayor who helps you stay here and builds a future better than ever for all of us,” Sliwa posted to X on Sunday. California Proposition 50 would give the state permission to redraw congressional district maps until 2030 in order to favor Democrats. The move was put forward by leading Democrats in the state to counteract a move by Texas to redraw their maps to favor Republicans. According to the California Secretary of State’s website, the “pro” argument is that it “approves temporary, emergency congressional district maps to counter Donald Trump’s scheme to rig next year’s congressional election and reaffirms California’s commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting after the next census.” On the side against the ballot measure, the argument is that the proposition is “dismantling safeguards that keep elections fair, removes requirements to keep local communities together, and eliminates voter protections that ban maps designed to favor political parties” and says it was “written by politicians, for politicians.” The “no” side has been significantly outspent by proponents of the measure, which includes Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House. Donors include insurance giant Blue Shield of California, which gave $500,000 to Newsom’s ballot measure committee, The Daily Wire reported last week. “If Texas had backed off, California would have backed off,” Pelosi wrote last week on X. “But Trump insisted on Texas starting this fight — so California will meet this moment and win BIG on Tuesday to defend our health care and our democracy.” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) wrote on X on Monday that Californians should “Vote NO because voters, not politicians, should choose the destiny of our state.” “Vote NO because each and every citizen deserves fair representation. Vote NO because California is worth fighting for,” he added. Polling has indicated that the proposition will pass, as opponents have attributed the partisan language of the ballot measure to its potential success.

After Nick Fuentes told Tucker Carlson that he was a “fan” and “admirer” of Joseph Stalin, Carlson told the young antisemite that they’d have to “circle back” on that point. But like Jen Psaki before him, Carlson failed to do so. So, I reached out to Aaron MacLean, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the host of the School of War podcast. He’s also a Marine who deployed to Afghanistan, a former professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, and, perhaps most importantly, was once my editor at the Washington Free Beacon, where I learned his encyclopedic knowledge of European history first-hand. Is there anything to admire about Stalin? It’s a question that I think Daily Wire readers know the answer to, but one worth circling back on nonetheless. —Brent Scher *** When Adolf Hitler shot himself in his Berlin bunker in 1945, he was directly responsible for the deaths of more than ten million men, women, and children. That includes the millions he had murdered in the network of camps he had constructed across Europe. Toward the end of the war the typical method was to order large, terrified groups to strip naked at gunpoint, inform them they were to be disinfected from lice, and then asphyxiate them with cyanide gas in a sealed room mocked up to look like a shower. The gassing itself took about 15 minutes. Early in the war many were shot, until questions of troop morale compelled the Nazis to invent techniques that would be less traumatizing for the executioner. Europe’s Jews hold the unhappy distinction of having been the largest population of Hitler’s victims, with about 6 million killed in a campaign of deliberate destruction. Millions more deaths than these can be directly attributed to Hitler’s orders, without even broaching the question of his responsibility for the overall death toll of World War II in Europe, which he started and prosecuted almost until the end. It’s remarkable that even with so steep a butcher’s bill, Hitler does not hold first place among the 20th century’s murderers. That position is occupied by Chairman Mao Zedong, whose efforts to bring socialism to China killed more than 40 million Chinese, the vast majority of whom starved. Hitler must compete among historians for second place. His rival is the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin. Like Mao, Stalin led a revolutionary leftwing regime that sought to bring equality and justice to one of the most economically and socially backwards nations on earth. Like Hitler, who was born in Austria, Stalin also came from the outer reaches of the empire he would come to terrorize. Taking power upon the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin inherited an incomplete communist revolution. The elimination of private property and Sovietization of major cities was well underway. But the Russian countryside was vast and it had been virtually impossible to impose the rule of enlightened science with any kind of scale or efficiency. In practice, independent farmers and landowners still lived their lives much as they had before the revolution. Stalin ordered that this capitalist inertia be halted, and “collectivized” (that is, stole) these farms and gave them to “the people” (that is, the Soviet government he dominated). Hundreds of thousands of the farmers were murdered summarily; many more of them and their families died of starvation, disease, and other conditions of deportation from their land. As violent as this consequence was, it was not the worst outcome of collectivization. That was the death by starvation of millions as the food supply, predictably, faltered when those who had grown and sold the food were replaced by entirely new and untested systems of production and distribution. As food shortages grew, rather than acknowledge his mistake, Stalin blamed those producing the food, and accused selfish locals of hoarding rather than participating in the new communist system in good faith. Brutal punishments and the confiscation of local food supplies abounded. In Ukraine, this campaign of deliberate retaliation, remembered today as the “Holodomor,” caused the deaths of about 3 million, as Ukrainian-grown grain was taken and transported to feed the people of Moscow and other Russian cities. Whole villages died, but not before eating their pets, boiling shoe leather for soup, and grinding bones to make flour. Many went mad, their bellies distended, their limbs withered and strengthless. Cannibalism was far from unheard of, to include within families, to include mothers and their children. All in accordance with Stalin’s orders, all in the name of science and progress. (For those who wish to know more about the Holodomor, Vasily Grossman’s Everything Flows is a brilliant examination of this episode by an eyewitness.) Meanwhile, back at the regime’s center, among Soviet elites, Stalin feared dissent and plots to displace him from power — some real, most imagined. Such fears are the fate of any absolute dictator. To allay them, Stalin unleashed waves of purges of various elites in the state, the military, and the professions, culminating in the late 1930s in a period now known as the Great Terror. Over half a million Russians were executed during this period, many of them taken from their families in the middle of the night and shot in the basement of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison. The overwhelming majority of them were guilty of absolutely nothing. Sometimes spectacular show trials were held for the accused, in which the captives would be compelled to theatrically “confess” their participation in nonexistent and cinematically traitorous plots against the state, lest their families also be murdered. In this period, the “luckier” victims were the many millions arrested and deported to the gulags in the east — concentration and forced labor camps where over a million died over the lifetime of the system. (The work of Robert Conquest in his “The Great Terror” and the eyewitness accounts of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in “The Gulag Archipelago” and “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” are outstanding ways to learn more about Stalin’s actions in this period.) As the Second World War loomed, many expected an apocalyptic clash between the great leftwing revolutionary power, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and the great rightwing revolutionary power, Nazi Germany. The world was then shocked when in August of 1939 Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with Hitler, giving the Nazi dictator a free hand to fight a war in the west while also dividing Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. When Hitler invaded Poland in September, Soviet troops marched in as well, dividing the country in two. Setting aside the unique horror of the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust which was still to come, Soviet rule was hardly any less brutal than that of the Nazis, with widespread liquidation (that is, murder) of Polish elites who might resist Soviet imperialism — famously, the execution in the woods near Katyn of over 20,000 Polish military officers, police, intellectuals, and other elites. A small number in comparison to other bloodbaths of the day — an immaterial observation to the families of the dead. Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, in one of the Soviet dictator’s most notable lapses of judgment: a man who never trusted another living soul in his own country bizarrely trusted Adolf Hitler. The cataclysm that ensued very nearly wiped Russia out as an independent country, not least because the Soviet military’s officer corps had been decimated by waves of purges, leaving mediocrities and yes-men overrepresented among the survivors. Nevertheless, the blood of the common Russian soldier, the snow of the Russian winter, and the steel of the American industrial machine prevailed in defeating Hitler in the east. The United States saved Soviet Russia due to a common interest in defeating Nazi expansionism, only then to have to deal with Soviet expansionism, as Stalin postwar imposed iron rule on Eastern Europe and sought opportunities for global communism to expand wherever the free world showed weakness, from West Berlin to South Korea. The terror and expansionism only moderated upon his death in 1953 — and the regime he did so much to shape continued to destabilize the world and oppress its own people for another 40 years. Why anyone, let alone anyone like Nick Fuentes, who claims to be on the Right, would “admire” Joseph Stalin seems at first a mystery — but the solution to the puzzle is in the fact that he seems to admire both Hitler and Stalin. The particulars of the revolutionary ideologies in question matter less than the sheer gleeful desire for destruction for its own sake. The terrain of the 20th century is made up of rivers of blood and mountains of murdered innocents, piled to the heavens. America’s heroic role in that period was to draw a line and defeat the terror of Hitler, and then contain that of Stalin. Unfortunately the world is again a dangerous place; it is important to remember who the monsters were, and are. Aaron MacLean is host of the podcast School of War and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

WASHINGTON—John Fetterman doesn’t know what his fellow Democrats are thinking. That, more or less, sums up what the Pennsylvania Democrat had to say to The Daily Wire during a wide-ranging Monday interview in his Senate office. Seated in front of a fireplace festooned with pennants from Pennsylvania colleges, across from a framed “Don’t Be A Jagoff” poster, Fetterman held forth on the government shutdown, foreign policy, and the strange convergence of issues that have made him one of the Upper Chamber’s most surprising bipartisan voices. It’s not just that Fetterman doesn’t understand some of the positions his colleagues have taken — though, to be sure, he doesn’t — but that he literally doesn’t know what they’re thinking. And how could he? They won’t talk to him. “Not a single Democrat reached out to me,” Fetterman said about the lack of response to his Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper, during which he said that Democrats “need to own the shutdown.” Fetterman suspects he hasn’t heard much from Democrats because they realize he’s “pretty committed” to what he says is a “pretty reasonable” view: that lawmakers should never hold the government hostage to achieve their political ends. Still, as Congress barrels through the record for the longest-ever government shutdown, you would think Chuck Schumer might reach out to the member of his caucus who not only voted with Republicans to reopen the government 15 times, but has become an increasingly-vocal crusader against his party’s position. So, has the Gentleman from Pennsylvania heard from the Senate Minority Leader? “I haven’t,” Fetterman says. Such is life for the self-proclaimed “regular Democrat,” whose refusal to toe the party line has made him a bit of a loner on his side of the aisle. “I mean, honestly, I’m on The Daily Wire having this conversation,” Fetterman says with just a hint of incredulity. “I’m not having this conversation on MSNBC because they haven’t — I’d be happy to have this conversation there.” The senator doesn’t complete his thought, but later on he says it would be “great” if “MSNBC decides to have me back on.” The implication is clear: when he started siding with Republicans, 30 Rock stopped calling. Still, Fetterman has no interest in becoming the type of “Confirmed Bipartisan Senator,” bucking his party and making grand pronouncements about the need to cross the aisle. He’s quick to dismiss the idea that he’s some kind of Democratic Party gadfly, and brushes off comparisons to similar senators, noting that both Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney weren’t trying to keep their parties honest so much as they were trying to survive in hostile electoral environments. So, no, John Fetterman has no intention of ditching the donkeys, not to go independent, and certainly not to join the other side. “I’d be a pretty terrible Republican, you know?” the senator laughs. But that doesn’t mean he’s thrilled with how things are going with his team. “I think the problem with the Democratic Party is, if you have a problem with a Democrat who supports Israel, who wants to secure our border, and thinks that it’s always wrong to shut our government down, then I think maybe the party has a bigger problem than I thought.” Fetterman takes care to say that it’s the improbable fact of those three issues — Israel, the southern border, and the government shutdown — “converging at the same time” that “put me in alignment with more of a Republican view.” “I ran as a regular Democrat, and my values haven’t changed,” Fetterman says.”What’s changed is, I think, the response after the Trump election.” “We lost. We lost!” Fetterman says, repeating himself for emphasis. “And I think we really have to explore exactly why.” “If it was partly the extreme things,” Fetterman says, doubling down on those positions would be a mistake. It’s impossible not to think of Zohran Mamdani when he says this. The socialist upstart and likely next mayor of New York City has run a campaign in many ways reminiscent of Fetterman’s: focusing on the common man and embracing the fact that he looks different from everyone else on the primary ballot. But Mamdani shows no signs of moderating and offers no indication that he’ll govern like a “regular Democrat.” But if Mamdani has Fetterman worried about the future of the Democratic Party, the senator won’t let on. “New York City’s politics are not a model or relevant to national politics,” Fetterman says. “He will be the next mayor of NYC. That doesn’t change my life. And I don’t think it will change our party that wants to win nationally.” It’s hard to square that sentiment with the actions of the Democratic Party, which in fact seems quite happy to sacrifice national victories to satisfy its Left flank. Take, for instance, the very shutdown that has Fetterman on the outs, which has dragged on this long in no small part because Schumer is terrified of being defenestrated by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s also hard to square that sentiment with Fetterman’s other comments. “I’d like to remind people that every single union that’s connected to this shutdown has said, hey, open this up! Vote for the CR, get that out,” Fetterman says. “We’re a pro-union party. Why don’t we listen to them? Why is this controversial for a Democrat to follow the voice of the unions?” “I think shutting our government down simply because we have to ‘fight,’ or because that’s part of this resistance, I don’t agree with it,” the senator adds. “And I think we’re gonna hurt the kinds of people who are at the center of our party.” As long as the government is closed, getting things reopened — paying servicemen, funding SNAP — will be Fetterman’s main focus. But after that’s resolved, assuming the peace in Gaza lasts, and if we can get something done in Ukraine, Fetterman senses the next issue of contention looming on the horizon. “Holding China accountable,” Fetterman says. “China is certainly not our ally.” The senator is open to whatever President Donald Trump and his team can throw at Beijing, from tariffs on down. Asked if he worries that escalating tensions with China will put Taiwan in the crosshairs, he demurs, but makes a point of trumpeting U.S.-Taiwan relations. “I’m a big believer in democracy, and those are our key allies: Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine,” Fetterman says, noting that defending each country is “pretty much the same fight against these kinds of nations like China, Russia, and Iran.” Here, Fetterman returns once again to bipartisanship. “I don’t care who brings peace, whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden, I’m gonna support and follow as long as they’re pushing for peace, through strength. Peace through strength.” Peace through strength. Ronald Reagan added that phrase to the Republican Party platform in 1980, where it’s remained ever since. Like Fetterman, he was a union man whose frustrations with the Democratic Party catapulted him to national fame. Fetterman stops short of declaring, as Reagan famously did, that the Democratic Party left him. But whether he’ll say it or not, it seems like that particular train may be leaving the station. And the senator from Pennsylvania doesn’t seem interested in running to catch it.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Even the most social among us know the feeling: you’re laughing with friends, enjoying yourself…and then, suddenly, you’re done. The chatter feels louder, the room feels smaller, and all you want is to go home. This shift, often called hitting your social limit, isn’t just in your head. A new study from Hinge suggests it may have a specific timeframe. According to Hinge’s Social Energy Study, which surveyed over 10,000 participants, 38 percent of people start to feel socially exhausted after about two to three hours of interaction. The symptoms include losing energy, zoning out, or feeling overstimulated. While it’s not a universal rule, therapists say it makes sense. “It’s just enough time to do the things we enjoy with loved ones—seeing a movie, grabbing a meal, doing some shopping,” explains Nari Jeter, LMFT, a licensed couples therapist in Florida. “Most of my clients are adults with busy schedules, spouses, and children, so two to three hours seems manageable for getting your social needs met without feeling overwhelmed.” Finding your personal “social sweet spot” While that two-to-three-hour mark might sound like the golden number, experts agree it varies widely. Laurie Helgoe, PhD, associate clinical professor of psychology at Augsburg University and author of Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength, says the key is understanding what drains you most. “Socializing, especially with somebody new, is more taxing for an introvert,” she explains. “They benefit more from regular pauses or breaks in conversation.” Even extroverts have their limits. Fatigue, irritability, or boredom during social time doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with your friendships. It simply means your body and mind need a recharge. Jeter adds, “It’s completely normal to feel irritable or bored when spending time with loved ones. It doesn’t reflect the strength of your relationship, but more so individual needs, preferences, and boundaries.” So how can you tell you’re nearing your social capacity? Some common signs include: Sudden irritability or impatience Giving short responses or withdrawing from the group Mentally checking out or scrolling on your phone If these sound familiar, it may be your body’s way of signaling, Time to rest. Small changes that make your social energy last longer When you can’t just leave (say, you’re at a friend’s birthday or a work event), there are ways to extend your social stamina. Dr. Helgoe suggests changing your scenery: “If the current conversation is overstimulating you, step into the kitchen to refill your drink. Head to the backyard for a quick breather. Chat with someone new to reset your energy.” Jeter offers another practical tip: try being a passive participant. Rather than carrying the conversation, focus on listening. “Ask follow-up questions, make eye contact, laugh,” she says. “Those communication strategies show you’re present but don’t require as much energy as leading the discussion.” And remember, your social capacity isn’t a flaw to fix. It’s a rhythm to honor. Recognizing your personal limit and taking breaks when needed doesn’t just prevent burnout; it helps you show up fully next time.The post How to recharge your social battery and find your social sweet spot first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you spend long hours glued to your desk, there’s a bit of good news brewing in the lab. Specifically, in a cup of cocoa. A new study from researchers at the University of Birmingham in the UK suggests that flavanols, plant compounds found in cocoa, could help prevent the damaging effects of too much sitting on blood vessels. It’s long been said that sitting is the new smoking. And with modern work and streaming habits keeping us in our chairs for much of the day, the health implications are stacking up. Research shows that every two-hour stretch spent sitting and watching TV raises the risk of obesity by 23 percent and diabetes by 14 percent. Another study links each additional hour of sitting to a 33 percent higher risk of sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength. Add in the neck, shoulder, and lower back pain that come with all that sitting, and the case against the chair grows strong. Why cocoa caught scientists’ attention The vascular system is one of the first parts of the body to suffer when we sit for too long. Reduced blood flow and arterial function can set the stage for cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes. Previous studies hinted that flavanols, which are naturally occurring compounds in foods like cocoa, tea, and berries, may offer protective effects for the heart. The Birmingham team decided to test whether these benefits could hold up even during long periods of sitting. They recruited 40 healthy men aged eighteen to forty-five and divided them into groups based on fitness level. Half were given a high-flavanol cocoa drink containing 695 milligrams of flavanols, while the other half received a low-flavanol version with just 5.6 milligrams. Then came the hard part: sitting still for two hours. Flavanols for the win The researchers measured vascular function in the participants’ arms and legs using a technique called brachial flow-mediated dilation (FMD), which assesses how well blood vessels relax and expand. The results were striking. In both the high-fit and low-fit groups, those who drank the high-flavanol cocoa showed no decline in arterial function after sitting. In contrast, those who drank the low-flavanol version had reduced blood flow, higher diastolic blood pressure, and lower muscle oxygenation. “Our experiment indicates that higher fitness levels do not prevent the temporary impairment of vascular function induced by sitting when only drinking low-flavanol cocoa,” said study co-author Sam Lucas. “Importantly, after the high-flavanol drink, both fitter and less-fit participants kept their FMD the same as it was before sitting for two hours.” This finding makes the study a first of its kind, showing that flavanol intake can protect blood vessels from the effects of prolonged sitting, regardless of baseline fitness. Beyond the chocolate bar If cocoa isn’t your cup of tea, don’t worry. Study co-author Alessio Daniele points out that flavanols are also found in apples, plums, berries, nuts, green and black tea, red wine, kale, tomatoes, and peaches. The goal isn’t to binge on chocolate bars but to integrate more flavanol-rich foods into your diet for everyday cardiovascular protection. “Given how common sedentary lifestyles have become and the increased risk this can have to vascular health, using flavanol-rich food and drink—especially in combination with breaking up periods of inactivity by going for a short walk or standing up—could be a good way to enhance long-term health, no matter the individual’s fitness level,” added co-author Catarina Rendeiro. The research, published in the Journal of Physiology, adds a sweet twist to an old message: movement matters, but a little flavanol boost might help take the edge off our increasingly sedentary lives. Source study: Journal of Physiology— Dietary flavanols preserve upper- and lower-limb endothelial function during sitting in high- and low-fit young healthy malesThe post Too much sitting? Cocoa might be your sweetest health hack yet first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

On today’s Election Day edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor and Jack unpack the controversies surrounding Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes and how the legacies of William F. Buckley Jr. and “Firing Line”—a show that confronted radicalism head-on—need to serve as examples for how conservatives handle extremists and bad-faith actors, as well as a recent poll out of Gaza showing alarming support for Hamas among Palestinians. The post Victor Davis Hanson: If Only William Buckley Could Debate Nick Fuentes   appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A former Arizona teacher was sentenced to almost two centuries in prison for having sex with numerous underage students while he taught at the Arizona Agribusiness and Equine Center public charter school in Mesa.Cory Kapahulehua, 44, was convicted on 17 charges related to the accusations made against him by two students who said he had sex with them, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.'I'm proud of these girls for having the courage to come forward and stop him from victimizing any children ever again.'"Both victims, a 14-year-old girl and [a] 17-year-old girl, met Kapahulehua in August 2021 while he was teaching at Arizona Agribusiness and Equine Center, Mesa campus," the office said.The younger victim said that she had sex with Kapahulehua on school grounds until she reported him and he lost his job in Jan. 2022. Then they had sex at a hotel near the school and also at a parking complex.The older victim testified that Kapahulehua brought her to his apartment, where they had sex when she was underage."At one point, the defendant started an online fundraiser to help move her out of her parent's home at age 17. They eventually moved in together after she turned 18," the prosecutors wrote.RELATED: 63-year-old woman allegedly created images of molestation of children she was babysitting Kapahulehua was convicted on seven counts of sexual conduct with a minor, one count of child molestation, two counts of sexual abuse, and one count of aggravated assault, among other charges.He was sentenced to serve the sentences consecutively, which added up to 187 years in prison."This defendant used his position as a teacher to groom these students and take advantage of their trust," Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said. "I'm proud of these girls for having the courage to come forward and stop him from victimizing any children ever again."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

[View Article at Source]As China modernizes its military for a forceful reunification with Taiwan, U.S. planners continue to seek insight into how the People’s Liberation Army will implement its…