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The "Happy Gilmore" star made rare comments on his 1985 breakup from Geena Davis.

The "Happy Gilmore" star made rare comments on his 1985 breakup from Geena Davis.

Consider Matt Blake among the pleasantly surprised that Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn and David bednar have become arguably the best bullpen troika in the game.

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California’s highest-paid employees are a little-known cadre of pension managers, prison workers and patrolmen who pull in as much as $2 million in total compensation on the taxpayer dime, records reveal. The top-earning state worker last year was Stephen Gilmore, chief investment officer at the California Public Employees Retirement System, who netted $2.36 million in...

Massachusetts Citizenship Rule At Center Of Alleged Voter-Impersonation Case

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

After federal prosecutors charged a Chinese man for registering to vote and casting a ballot under his former landlord's name, experts are questioning Massachusetts' verification processes.

A voter fills out his midterm-election ballot in Boston City Hall on Nov. 8, 2022. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Yupeng Sun, a Chinese national living in Andover, allegedly submitted an online voter registration in the name of his former landlord, who was not a U.S. citizen, on Oct. 10, 2024.

Massachusetts regulations - which took effect in June 2023 - require applicants using the state's online voter registration system to have reliable citizenship information documented in their motor vehicle records before they submit an application online.

If that citizenship documentation is missing, the regulation says the applicant "shall be unable to submit an online application."

"How did Sun manage to successfully, allegedly, impersonate a green card holder?" Logan Churchwell, research director at the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Epoch Times.

"Based on the regulation, a system functioning according to the letter should've halted the impersonation at the outset," he said.

"Massachusetts seems to have everything it needs in place to verify citizenship, but there could be malfunctioning parts needing fixes," he said.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth's office has not explained how the application was able to proceed under that requirement.

Prosecutors allege that Sun used his former landlord J.L.'s real name, date of birth, former Malden address, and Massachusetts driver's license number to register online.

J.L., a Chinese citizen and lawful permanent resident, was not eligible to vote.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth's office did not respond by publication time to questions about what citizenship information was contained in J.L.'s registry record, how an online application submitted in his identity was able to proceed under the regulation, or whether the state has reviewed the process since learning of the case.

Three weeks after registering, prosecutors allege, Sun went to Malden City Hall, identified himself as J.L., received an early ballot for the presidential election, and signed J.L.'s name on the ballot envelope.

Malden City Clerk Carol Ann Desiderio previously told The Epoch Times that the ballot was processed and counted in the final certified vote. The city had identified no problem with J.L.'s registration or ballot before federal investigators contacted it.

Don Palmer, a former chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and former state elections director who is now a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said election administrators should verify both identity and citizenship before placing an applicant on the voter rolls.

"There needs to be a mechanism to confirm the eligibility of applicants under state and federal law, and you should not simply rely on the assertion of the applicant," Palmer told The Epoch Times.

Palmer called the allegation that one noncitizen used another noncitizen's identity to register and cast a ballot an example of inadequate citizenship verification.

He said online registration systems should use existing government records and technology to confirm both identity and eligibility.

"States need to use existing technology and databases available to them to assist in confirming eligibility of voters; otherwise, these failures will continue to hurt voter confidence," Palmer said.

Charles Stewart III, an MIT political scientist who studies election administration, said the allegations involve unusually extensive identity theft and that determined impersonators can evade many identity safeguards.

Boston Records

The Public Interest Legal Foundation separately provided The Epoch Times with a spreadsheet it compiled from voter records obtained from the City of Boston.

The catalog contains 70 voter registrations that had been canceled because of noncitizenship.

Of those, 22 are marked "Yes" in a column showing whether at least one vote was recorded in the registrant's name. Sixteen are marked "No," while 32 don't have a yes-or-no entry.

In one case, the spreadsheet notes that Boston believed a vote credit may have been mistakenly assigned to the registrant instead of his wife.

Several entries say noncitizenship was discovered through Boston's annual resident listing. Others identify the Registry of Motor Vehicles as the source of the original voter registration.

The City of Boston did not respond by publication time to questions about how the 70 registrations were identified or whether the individuals associated with the 22 voting histories were noncitizens when those votes were recorded.

The city's public-records office acknowledged The Epoch Times' request for the underlying records and said it would work to respond within 10 business days.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/24/2026 - 19:15

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired a powerful shot across Tehran's bow Monday by rolling out “Operation Economic Outcast.”

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TotalEnergies CEO Reveals Cost To Move A Supertanker Through Hormuz

The crisis-driven dislocation across Gulf oil markets has positioned French energy giant TotalEnergies SE as an early mover, capitalizing on heavily discounted Persian Gulf crude priced at $50 to $60 a barrel and moving it through the highly contested Strait of Hormuz. CEO Patrick Pouyanné revealed at the Norwegian energy conference on Monday that transiting the waterway now costs roughly $20 million per supertanker.

Bloomberg earlier quoted Pouyanné as saying that the added cost of moving crude on supertankers through the Hormuz chokepoint is about $10 per barrel. However, with Brent crude futures at $92 per barrel, the potential profit could be upward of $30 per barrel. That is before financing and other costs, creating extraordinary margins for companies willing to accept the risks of being early movers in one of the world's most dangerous waterways.

TotalEnergies is one of the largest traders of Iraqi and Qatari crude, with both producers continuing to move oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

"We are today probably the largest trader of oil from Iraq or from Qatar ... and I can ​tell you that today crude oil is moving through the Strait of Hormuz very quietly, not ​publicly," Pouyanné said. 

Pouyanné did not elaborate on whether TotalEnergies-contracted tankers are transiting the US military-supervised shipping corridor off Oman.

Recent data have shown a noticeable uptick in transits, raising the question of whether Tehran's grip on the maritime chokepoint has eroded.

Pouyanné also warned that the refined-products market is currently in crisis.

"You have a bearish crude oil market and a very bullish product markets, which is very strange," he said. "Our consumers in Europe will suffer on this one," while in the US, "gasoline prices would not go lower than $4 as President Trump would like."

More on Pouyanne from Bloomberg's Javier Blas:

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne nails it, warning that some emerging nations are “losing trust” on LNG after two back-to-back price shocks (2022 and 2026). The result? “Back to coal.”

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) August 24, 2026

Gulf producers are willing to unload discounted crude, while some energy companies are ready to accept the risk of sailing through the Strait of Hormuz in pursuit of substantial profits. Despite all this, as Pouyanné warned, there is little that increased crude flows can do to resolve the worldwide refined-products crisis.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/24/2026 - 18:50

Gov. Gavin Newsom and wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom listed the Fair Oaks home for $7.5 million — double what they paid in 2018.

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By simply walking onto UCLA’s practice field Monday morning, Trent Hendrick made history. The linebacker became the school’s first player to have practiced with an NFL team before joining the Bruins’ roster. “He’s a nice addition of a kid that we trust and believe in as part of our family,” Bruins coach Bob Chesney said...