Candidate and commentator Steve Hilton defended President Donald Trump at a debate and said that he and Trump would work together to “lower gas prices” should voters elect him governor of California.

Six candidates faced off Wednesday night in the first California gubernatorial debate since Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) exited the race under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations, including claims of sexual assault.

Two GOP candidates — Ex-Fox Newser Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — took the stage with four Democrats: Porter, billionaire Tom Steyer, former Biden HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

The Nexstar debate was moderated by anchors Nikki Laurenzo of FOX40 and Frank Buckley of KTLA 5.

In one exchange, Buckley confronted Hilton over Trump’s low approval among Californians and asked “Are those Californians wrong?”

Hilton stuck by Trump and cited gas prices among the areas his relationship with Trump could be a benefit:

FRANK BUCKLEY: You said you were deeply honored to recently receive President Trump’s endorsement. That’s despite the fact that 62% of Californians disapprove of the job he is doing.

Are those Californians wrong? You have 60 seconds.

STEVE HILTON: One of the proudest days of my life was the day I became an American citizen. It happened in a ceremony right here in San Francisco. So it is a deep honor for me to be endorsed by the President of the United States.

And here’s the thing that’s gonna help every Californian when I’m governor, is that we will have a constructive relationship and partnership with the federal government, which would be the case, I would hope, for any party in that situation.

So that we can make things better in California, work with the president and his administration to manage our forests better, to harvest the timber so we can build the single-family homes we need for our young families.

To work to increase California energy production as he wants to do so we can lower gas prices.

To fight the fraud in our government so we can cut spending and cut taxes.

To work to enforce our immigration laws in all these areas and more.

It will benefit every Californian to have a Governor who is a partner on these issues with the President and his team.

Watch above via KTLA.

The post Trump Ally At Debate Says He and Trump Will ‘Lower Gas Prices’ If He Wins CA Governor’s Race first appeared on Mediaite.

Google Meet's "Take Notes for me" feature is one particularly useful implementation of AI. When you're on a video call, Gemini can dictate what's being said, offering summaries and highlights of the conversation. That way, your attention doesn't need to be split between the conversation at hand and writing down notes to remember key points later: You can just check the notes that are automatically generated as a Google Doc once the meeting is over. It's the kind of feature that sells me more on the whole "AI assistant" thing, rather than something trying to order me a coffee.

Of course, video conferencing isn't the only time dictation can be useful. An in-person meeting can benefit from the same perks as a virtual one: Why bother with scribbling down notes on paper or typing away on a laptop when your phone can transcribe the chat on your behalf? I've started using the Voice Memos app on my iPhone for the task, for example, since it's easy to record both audio and an automatic transcription of the conversation. If you're a regular Google Meet user, however, you now have a similar option in your app of choice: Meet's Take Notes for me feature now supports live, in-person meetings as well.

How "Take Notes for me" works in person

As noted by 9to5Google, here's how it works: You open the Google Meet site or app on your device, but rather than start a call, you can use the new "Take Notes for me" option to task Gemini with transcribing and summarizing your discussion. You can hit "Pause" at any time to pause dictation, and "Stop" followed by "Stop taking notes" to end it altogether. You can also transition to a video call if you want to conference in someone who isn't in the same room as you. And, just as with a Google Meet call, Take Notes for me will automatically save the meeting notes in a Google Doc.

This feature started as an Alpha-only option but is now rolling out to more Workspace plans. Your admin may need to activate it on their end, but following that, you should be able to start recording your own conversations.

Try an alternative to Google Meet's in-person dictation

This feature won't appear for any Google account not tied to a Workspace plan. Of course, there are plenty of alternatives out there if you don't have "Take Notes for me" available to you in Google Meet. It won't be a perfect match, since Google Meet integrates with your Google account and does more than just transcribe the call, but there are other options worth considering.

As I mentioned, I really like using Apple's built-in tools: Voice Memos can generate automatic transcriptions, which you can save to Apple Notes. But if you don't have an Apple device or you prefer another option, PCMag has a series of recommendations, including Otter.ai, GoTranscript, and Rev.

(AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) was defiant this week as reporters pressed him on the various accusations he’s facing and why he hasn’t resigned from Congress when several others have done so under similar clouds of controversy.

While speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Mills was flat-out asked, “Why haven’t you resigned?” in response to others giving up their positions in Congress. The video was captured and shared by MeidasTouch.

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress this week after she was found guilty of 25 out of 27 ethics violations for embezzling millions of dollars. The Department of Justice in November also charged Cherfilus-McCormick, her brother, and others with stealing COVID relief funds and campaign violations. She’s denied all wrongdoing.

Eric Swalwell, another Democrat, also resigned and dropped his California gubernatorial campaign amid accusations of sexual misconduct, including rape and drugging. He’s also denied those allegations.

Finally, Texas Republican Tony Gonzales also announced he was leaving Congress as he was facing an expulsion vote over an affair with a staffer, who later committed suicide.

Asked why he hasn’t resigned in “response” to this wave of resignations, Mills made it clear he believes his situation is completely different.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a resolution this week seeking to expel Mills. The congressman is facing numerous allegations. The House Ethics Committee is investigating him for violating campaign finance laws, sexual misconduct, and more.

According to a report from the Washington Post, police wanted to arrest Mills last year over the alleged assault of a woman. Body camera footage and documents revealed that a lieutenant ordered officers not to arrest Mills after his accuser changed her story after speaking to Mills.

The congressman has denied all wrongdoing.

“Can you tell me what criminal or civil charges I have been charged with?” Mills asked this week.

Mills acknowledged he’s “under investigation,” but said he’s not facing the same sort of accusations.

“But they were under investigation for what? Sexual misconduct with a staffer or Hill staff,” Mills said, then correcting that he wasn’t facing a “restraining order” related to his case, but a “social media injunction.

“So is everyone on the floor who has a restraining order, even temporary where you don’t get to actually repel against it, should they all leave?” Mills asked.

He continued, “If you look at the history, in 250 years, so six people, three of which were civil war crimes, two of which were convicted felons under a federal indictment, and [George] Santos. So what is the actual precedent? If you’re going to actually ask the question, you should know the answer.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) stood by Mills this week, saying the congressman has denied all accusations of wrongdoing and he’s entitled to his due process.

“He has said that all of these allegations are untrue,” he said. “He is working through that. There is a due process that he is allowed and they’re going through that process as have all the other members.”

The post Cory Mills Defiant as Reporters Grill Him on Accusations and Refusal to Leave Congress: ‘Why Haven’t You Resigned?’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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As tick populations grow (thanks, climate change) and tickborne diseases like Lyme become more widespread, tick checks have become routine for a lot of us. But do you really know what it means to “check yourself for ticks”? Chances are, you’re missing some important parts of the process.

You only need a tick check when you've been in the woods

Are you conscientious about tick checks when you're camping, but only when you're camping? Ticks live in more places than just the woods, and most parts of the US have at least one species of tick around. Check these tick maps from the CDC to get a sense of whether they’re in your area and which species of ticks to look out for. Dog ticks are found just about everywhere. Some tick species are only found in the eastern half of the country, and then there are the Rocky Mountain ticks and the western blacklegged ticks out west.

Ticks live in grassy, brushy, and wooded areas, the CDC notes. Growing up in Pennsylvania, I always thought of the woods and farm fields as the places you pick up ticks. But years later, I now know there are ticks in my own backyard, as well as parks and other areas that don’t fit the stereotype I had in my head. I’ll do a tick check whenever I’ve spent time near tall grass, leaf litter, woods, or brush—which includes pretty much anywhere I go in the summer. Don’t forget to check your kids for ticks, too.

Skipping the shower

If you think of a "tick check" as an isolated chore, it's easy to forget. But if you make sure to take a shower after you've been outdoors, that both gives you an opportunity for a thorough check as you're undressing, and possibly wash off ticks even if your check wasn't so thorough (or if you forgot to do it entirely). The CDC points out that taking a shower within two hours after you get home from an outdoor outing has been shown to reduce your chances of getting Lyme disease, and probably also reduces your chances of other tickborne diseases as well.

Ticks crawl around for a few hours before they find a place to attach, so there’s a good chance that un-attached ticks will wash off during the shower whether you see them or not. As a bonus, you also have several hours to wash off the oils from poison ivy before it begins to trigger a rash. A shower is always on my to-do list after coming home from a trail run. The other benefit of taking a shower after you get home is that it gives you a chance to get naked—and that’s when the real tick check begins.

Missing critical areas of your body

The first place I always check is my lower legs. Ticks need to stay close to the ground while they’re waiting for a person to walk by, so you won’t find them climbing trees and dropping down from above—that’s a myth. They chill on the ground, then climb a stalk of grass, then if they haven’t found a victim they will return to the ground to rehydrate for a bit. That means they’ll usually contact your lower legs first, so if you just got back from your hike, check your ankles, shins, and knees first.

But over the course of the next few hours, they’ll climb upwards. It’s not uncommon to find ticks on your upper body or even in your hair, if they've had enough time to climb. So check these harder-to-see spots, which I’ll list from bottom to top:

• The backs of your knees

• Between your legs (use a mirror...sorry!)

• Inside your belly button

• In your armpits

• Behind your ears

• In your hair

A mirror or a partner can help you to see those out-of-the-way places. If you have kids, check them over while you help them get ready for a shower or when you do a diaper change.

Not knowing what you're looking for

Look up the species of ticks that live in your area, and make sure you know how big they are and what they look like. Ticks grow as they go through their life cycle, with the smallest being about the size of a poppyseed. Adult ticks can be anywhere from the size of a sesame seed to a corn kernel, depending on what species they are and whether they have fed.

Before ticks attach, they crawl around, and you might mistake them for other kinds of bugs (and vice versa). There are lots of little bugs you can pick up from outside that aren’t ticks. If you want to take an educated guess at whether the little guy you found is a tick, check the number of legs. Ticks are arachnids, so they have eight legs.

You may find an attached tick during your check—or, if you’re unlucky, sometime the next day after you should have done your check. An attached tick doesn’t usually hurt. You might just notice a little scab or mole where there wasn’t one before, and when you take a closer look at it, it’s got legs. Ew. Go get the tweezers or your handy-dandy tick removal device. (I’m partial to the TickKey.)

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Once a tick is done feeding, it will drop off. If you have a pet dog and don’t keep up with their flea and tick medication, you may occasionally find what looks like a gray or green corn kernel in the dog bed. That’s what this is. A tick that is not attached to you isn’t usually a health risk if you find it in your house; chances are, it will dry out and die. But just to be safe, you can launder any clothes or bedding in hot water and/or put them in the dryer on high. Next time, keep your pet up to date on tick control medication, and do those tick checks on everybody when you get home.

Not having a plan for what to do when you find a tick

If you find a tick crawling on you, that's easy—wash it off, brush it off (if you're outside), or squish it and throw it in the trash. But what if you find one that's already attached? That's when you have to know the right way to remove a tick.

Forget the blown-out matches, soap, or alcohol—you don't want to do anything that makes the tick release itself, since they'll vomit their stomach contents into your bloodstream, which worsens the risk of catching a tickborne disease. Instead, pull the tick off your skin with fine-tipped tweezers, or with a specialized device like a TickKey or Tick Twister. I keep a TickKey in my bathroom at home, and bring another with me when I travel. You just slip the little keyhole slot over the tick, and pull—something even most squeamish folks can probably handle.

The View star Sunny Hostin insists she has “psychic abilities” — even if her political predictions haven’t really backed that claim up in recent years.

Hostin told the rest of the View crew she is a clairvoyant on Tuesday, after co-host Whoopi Goldberg read a report that said one in five Americans believe they are psychic. Goldberg noted there were five of them sitting around the table, and Hostin quickly raised her arm to signal she was the show’s resident medium.

Meanwhile, co-host Joy Behar was ripping off jokes. “One psychic — and four psychos,” she quipped, drawing a big laugh from the crowd.

Hostin then got serious, explaining how at the age of 5 she made a prediction that proved she was a psychic.

“I believe that I have psychic abilities,” she said. ” I grew up very poor, and I dreamt a number. And my grandmother was like, ‘We are going to play that number’… and my entire family won, based on that number.”

Hostin then crossed her arms and acted like it was guaranteed proof of her fortune-telling abilities. She then told the gang that she has had” other dreams and they have come true.”

Some of the women let out “oohs,” while Goldberg shot back, “And that’s why you think you’re psychic?”

“Well, my grandmother — now I’m going to start sounding crazy, my grandmother had psychic abilities,” Hostin said. “And she also told me that I had the gift.”

If that’s the case, it hasn’t helped Hostin with some of her predictions over the last few years. Like when she said Vice President Kamala Harris would beat Donald Trump in a “blowout” in 2024, or when she said Trump would get locked up for his alleged hush money payout to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

The segment on Tuesday was brief and tongue-in-cheek, or at least it seemed like Hostin was joking a bit. Watch for yourself above via ABC.

The post The View’s Sunny Hostin Swears She Has ‘Psychic Abilities’ — Even if She Sounds ‘Crazy’ first appeared on Mediaite.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Rumors are swirling on Capitol Hill about a potential “October surprise” from the Supreme Court that has some Senate Republicans and their aides hopeful for a last-minute surge in voter enthusiasm on their side of the aisle.

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton dug into the topic in a lengthy article on Monday, quoting several Republicans and some anonymous aides about the possibility that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito may retire just in time for a high-profile confirmation battle – much like the one over Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 that helped flip some Senate seats.

“It seems like it could happen,” one senior Republican aide told Bolton. “We’ll get somebody confirmed. The fight will be interesting.”

President Donald Trump poured gasoline on the fire surrounding the rumors of a Supreme Court fight last week when he told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo that he’s prepared to name new justices. “It could be two, could be three, could be one. I don’t know — I’m prepared to do it,” Trump said in the Wednesday interview.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Bolton that a SCOTUS fight could be just what the doctor ordered for the GOP to find some new energy. “If we did have a Supreme Court vacancy, obviously that would be a galvanizing issue for Republicans,” said Cornyn, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is in a tough reelection fight himself against MAGA primary candidate Ken Paxton – Texas’s controversial attorney general.

Cornyn qualified his remarks, however, adding that “Alito’s been great” and making clear, “I don’t give Supreme Court justices advice.”

Bolton also spoke to Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, who further laid out the stakes. “If there was a Supreme Court vacancy and there was a nomination battle going into October, it would have the whole agenda change,” Darling told The Hill. Bolton added of their conversation:

Darling said a Supreme Court battle would “shift” the focus of Senate races and “may motivate MAGA voters to get reengaged and show up to vote.”

“An October surprise is when some issue comes up that people aren’t expecting that completely changes the debate,” he added. “That clearly is something that would be welcomed by the Trump administration going into the midterms.”

Two embattled Democratic incumbents, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), held slight leads over their Republican opponents heading into the confirmation fight but wound up losing. They both later blamed the high-profile battle over Kavanaugh for impacting their races.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) also spoke to Bolton about a potential Supreme Court vacancy before the midterms, saying he’s “seen the articles” and added, “the rumor started somewhere.”

“Depends on their health,” Kennedy said of Alito, who is 76, and Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 77. “I don’t know where this rumor came from; it may well be true,” Kennedy concluded.

The post ‘It Could Happen’: Rumors Swirl of ‘October Surprise’ to Save Senate GOP Majority first appeared on Mediaite.

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My house has precisely one outdoor area, which makes it precious. It’s the only spot where we can hang out outside without actually leaving. Since I’m a dedicated introvert who enjoys fake conversations with his cats more than real conversations with people, that’s incredibly important. As a result, I put a lot of time into keeping the deck comfortable and in good repair.

A few years ago, I replaced some of the composite decking with new pieces that didn’t quite match the original color, so I painted the decking to keep things uniform. This past winter was pretty rough on the deck, though, which was starting to look a little worn:

My deck before the paint job, looking a little sad. Credit: Jeff Somers

The time had obviously come for a fresh paint job. I chose a lighter color this time and went shopping for the tools I’d need. A roller and a brush? Nope. A regular, cheap push broom and a bender pad.

How to paint a deck with a broom and a bender pad

Here’s all I needed to paint my deck: A paint tray, a can of floor and patio paint, a broom, and a bender pad:

My paint tools for this project. Credit: Jeff Somers

Painting your deck with a push broom is a lot easier than using a paint roller or a brush. A 10-inch push broom pretty generally covers two deck planks, and the bristles work the paint into the crevices much more efficiently than a roller, requiring fewer passes to get good coverage. And a bender pad is just a flexible, handheld tool that slips easily between tight spaces that need to be painted—like the spaces between deck boards.

Using these two unusual tools, I banged out this paint job in about an hour from start to finish. First, I cleaned the deck using a stiff brush to scrape away any dirt that had crusted on it. I scraped any loose paint away and let the deck dry out thoroughly. Once it was dry, I grabbed the broom and got to work. The key is to choose a push broom with flexible bristles—if they’re too stiff, you won’t get good coverage.

Using the broom to paint the deck. Credit: Jeff Somers

I alternated between painting the top of the boards and working on the spaces between with the bender bar. Instead of working a sloppy brush in between the boards, the bender pad smoothly pads the sides of the boards, leaving a clean, near-perfect coat. In retrospect, I should have started off by painting the sides first so I didn’t have to twist myself into pretzels at times because the boards were all wet with paint, but that’s a lesson for another time.

Using the bender pad on the deck. Credit: Jeff Somers

The broom and bender pad combo made painting the deck super easy and fast. If you’ve got a deck you want to paint or stain, forget the rollers and brushes and use a broom and a pad instead. You won’t regret it. Here’s the finished result:

My deck after the paint job. Credit: Jeff Somers