Uncommon Knowledge
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In her bid to win over Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris took her campaign to The Villages on Saturday, a Republican and Donald Trump stronghold, where videos of crowds of golf carts lined up for a Harris event have gone viral on social media.
Last Sunday, President Joe Biden exited the presidential race after mounting pressure to end his reelection campaign over his lackluster debate performance against Trump and concerns surrounding his age. Shortly after dropping out, Biden endorsed Harris for the Oval Office.
On Saturday, as part of Harris’ “Weekend of Action” campaign, the vice president campaigned in The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida that typically supports Trump, her Republican opponent. Trump previously won Florida, a coveted state with 30 Electoral College votes, in 2016 and 2020.
Democratic candidate Barbie Harden Hall, who is running to represent the district, posted videos on X, formerly Twitter, of Harris supporters, writing: “HUNDREDS OF GOLF CARTS! And I don’t even know how many supporters throughout the route! The Villages, Florida is FIRED UP for @KamalaHarris.”
Hall’s videos showing caravans of golf carts, the main form of transportation in the community, decked out in American flags as they entered the rally have since gone viral, with several Harris supporters resharing them.
Jon Cooper, a Democratic fundraiser, reposted Hall’s video reaching over 5 million views, as of Sunday afternoon. “Trust me when I say it’s a SUPER-RED community that’s usually a real hotbed of Trump support. The fact that there are over 200 golf carts at this rally for @KamalaHarris today is INCREDIBLE!” he wrote.
Hall’s video has received over 41,000 views, while a similar video on the X account @Harris_wins, has been viewed over 3.6 million times.
Newsweek reached out to Harris’ campaign to verify details of the rally in an email on Sunday.
Wow! I live only an hour’s drive from The Villages in Florida. Trust me when I say it’s a SUPER-RED community that’s usually a real hotbed of Trump support. The fact that there are over 200 golf carts at this rally for @KamalaHarris today is INCREDIBLE! pic.twitter.com/yozDlnziSD
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) July 27, 2024 BREAKING: The villages in Florida, typically dominated by MAGA extremists, have been completely taken over by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. This is a remarkable turnaround. Retweet so all Americans see this campaign’s energy and enthusiasm. pic.twitter.com/GkufzJDV9V
— Kamala’s Wins (@harris_wins) July 27, 2024
Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Jaime Harrison said on MSNBC’s The Weekend on Sunday, “The Villages is a ruby red—there were 500 golf cart seniors riding around, and probably voted for Donald Trump, previously, supporting Kamala Harris. This is an energy on the ground I have not seen since Barack Obama in 2008.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment via email on Sunday.
The Florida Democratic Party supported Harris’ campaign trip and wrote in a press release on Sunday that she has “energized the entire Democratic base” within the past week, adding, “Nearly 10,000 new Floridian volunteers—many from traditionally conservative places like The Villages—have stepped up to fight back against Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and the extremism of the Republican Party.”
As Biden only left the race a week ago, there are limited polls on a potential Harris-Trump match up in the state.
A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll of voters across nine states, most of them swing states, conducted between July 22 and 24, found Trump leading Harris in Florida by an additional percentage point, 8, than by her predecessor Biden. The poll surveyed 6,927 voters and it’s not clear how many were from Florida.
Update 7/28/24, 4:20 p.m. ET: This article’s headline was updated.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office on Thursday, Dec. 11, filed a lawsuit against popular online gaming platform Roblox, accusing the company of failing to protect its millions of underage users from predatory adults who would “find, groom, and abuse children.”
“Roblox aggressively markets to young children, but fails to protect them from sexual predators,” Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a post to X. “As a father of three little ones and as Florida’s attorney general, my number one priority is simple: to protect our kids.”
The lawsuit claims Florida children have been talked into taking and sending sexual images of themselves and lists several recent incidences, including a 20-year-old California man arrested last month for having sexually explicit conversations with a Palm Coast child and asking for nude photos.
A Roblox spokesperson said the lawsuit “fundamentally misrepresents how Roblox works.”
“We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications,” Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said in a statement, adding that the company — currently the most downloaded game in the world — will be rolling out additional safeguards “beyond what is required by law and what other platforms do.”
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San Mateo, California-based Roblox, released in 2006, hosts millions of user-created games (or “experiences”) constructed with the platform’s built-in game engine. Any user can create a game and share it with others, and there are millions of games available of all types.
The game platform and most games are free to use, but some cost to play. There is also a thriving economy based on Robux, an in-game virtual currency used to purchase virtual items. Roblox offers a subscription service called Roblox Premium that provides access to more features and a monthly allowance of Roblox.
Voice chat is available, but only for users aged 13 or older with verified ages. Age ratings were introduced for games in 2022, and in 2023, 17+ games were permitted to include more graphic violence, romance, and drinking.
According to Roblox, as of 2020, the monthly playerbase included half of all American children under the age of 16.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The 2026 football schedule for the Florida Gators has been set. Next year’s slate was unveiled Thursday night on SEC Network.
The most notable dates are Florida’s SEC opener on Sept. 19 — a Week 3 trip to Auburn, where the Gators haven’t played since 2011 — along with a road game at Texas on Oct. 17 and home games against Ole Miss (Sept. 26) and Oklahoma (Nov. 7).
Next season will mark the Sooners’ first-ever visit to Gainesville. The teams have previously played twice in the postseason, with the Gators defeating Oklahoma 24-14 in their first-ever meeting to win the 2008 national championship.
The Gators open the season in The Swamp on Sept. 5 against Florida Atlantic. UF’s other non-conference opponents will be Campbell (Sept. 12) and at Florida State (Nov. 28).
Florida is also hosting South Carolina (Oct. 10) and Vanderbilt (Nov. 21). The Gators haven’t played the Gamecocks or the Commodores since 2023.
UF takes on Georgia in Atlanta on Oct. 31 after the bye week. Florida’s other road games are Missouri (Oct. 3), Texas (Oct. 17) and Kentucky (Nov. 14).
The Gators will be led by first-year coach Jon Sumrall. He won the American Conference title with Tulane last week and has the Green Wave in the College Football Playoffs. They will have a rematch against Ole Miss on Dec. 20 in the first round after losing in Oxford, 45-10, on Sept. 20.
Sumrall was back in Gainesville this week to assemble his staff. So far, he has hired offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, defensive coordinator Brade White and defensive line coach Gerald Chatman.
Date
Opponent
Location
Sept. 5
Florida Atlantic
Gainesville, Florida
Sept. 12
Campbell
Gainesville, Florida
Sept. 19
at Auburn
Auburn, Alabama
Sept. 26
Ole Miss
Gainesville, Florida
Oct. 3
at Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
Oct. 10
South Carolina
Gainesville, Florida
Oct. 17
at Texas
Austin, Texas
Oct. 24
Bye
Oct. 31
Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Nov. 7
Oklahoma
Gainesville, Florida
Nov. 14
at Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Nov. 21
Vanderbilt
Gainesville, Florida
Nov. 28
at Florida State
Tallahassee, Florida
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A 5-4 start to Florida basketball’s national title defense is not what anyone had in mind — much less, the Gator Nation — but here we are nine games deep into the 2025-26 schedule.
To be fair, three of those losses have come against programs currently ranked among the top five in both major polls and have been off to stellar starts. The Arizona Wildcats, Duke Blue Devils and UConn Huskies are nothing to sneeze at, and while the TCU Horned Frogs are not quite on their tier, all of these losses came either on the road (Duke) or on a neutral court (the other three).
Maybe Todd Golden should reconsider playing in all of these early-season special events in the future. But alas, that is a story for another season.
Obviously, with a dominating frontcourt roster returning in full, there was plenty to be optimistic about heading into the campaign. However, the departure of three guards to the NBA and a fourth to the transfer portal has proven to be a void too large to fill with their offseason acquisitions.
And that is the crux of ESPN’s Myron Medcalf’s observation that the Gators have simply not met the bar so far.
“Months after winning a national title with an elite set of guards, Florida’s Todd Golden rebooted his backcourt with former Arkansas star Boogie Fland and Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee,” he begins.
“It hasn’t worked out as planned. In Florida’s two-player lineups — an on-court metric at EvanMiya.com that captures how teams perform when specific players are paired together — the Fland-Lee combination ranked 26th within its own team,” Metcalf continues.
“And though Lee scored 19 points against UConn in Tuesday’s game at Madison Square Garden, that loss was another example of the Gators’ limitations when Lee and Fland (1-for-9 combined from 3 against the Huskies) aren’t equally elite on the same night.”
He has not liked what he has seen, and his conclusion is not necessarily unfair.
“Ultimately, Florida hasn’t looked like a defending champion thus far, despite Thomas Haugh (18.6 PPG, 7.6 RPG, 2.8 APG) playing like an All-American.”
While Medcalf’s assessment comes fully equipped with dark clouds, the objective metrics paint a much more optimistic outlook for the team overall.
According to the NET rankings, Florida is just inside the top 25 at No. 24 — one spot ahead of the Miami Hurricanes, who they beat in Jacksonville back in November. The Gators are 1-3 in Quadrant 1 matchups, 1-1 in Quad 2, 1-0 in Quad 3 and 2-0 in Quad 4.
KenPom views the Orange and Blue even more bullishly, ranking Florida at No. 15 despite the weak record. Golden’s gang currently sits at No. 15 with a plus-26.55 adjusted net rating — up from plus-25.70 (17th) at the end of November, while the offense (120.4) moved up from 24th to 23rd in the nation, and the defense (93.8) has only dropped one place — from 10th to 11th — despite allowing 0.6 fewer points per 100 possessions.
The most optimistic metric for Florida comes from ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, which has the Gators at No. 9 despite a 1-3 stretch over the past two weeks. They have an 18.8 overall BPI, with the offense logging in at 8.5 (22nd) and defense earning a 10.3 (8th) rating recently.
ESPN projects Florida to go 21.0-10.0 overall and 12.2-5.8 in conference play.
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