A recent change to early voting may be helping Democrats in a series of special elections that are about to happen.
 
It’s called the permanent absentee list. Since 2020, voters can ask to receive a ballot in the mail for every election – not an application for a ballot, but the actual ballot for every election, including special elections that most voters don’t pay attention to.

Ben Tribbett is a Democratic consultant who says voters who don’t even know a special election is happening will find out when the ballot arrives in the mail.

“I did a special election a few years ago in Fairfax under these new rules, and it was different than any other special I’d ever done before,” Tribbett says. “Because by the time Election Day rolled around, we knew that 3,000 mail ballots had already been returned and 2,500 of them were for us.”

For now, this is a process that benefits Democrats says former Republican Delegate David Ramadan, who is now at George Mason University’s Schar School.

“Absolutely, the Democrats have the advantage on this in Virginia,” Ramadan says. “They started the absentee registration when Republicans were still on the Trump no-early-voting period. The Republicans have changed that, but Democrats had [a] few seasons on them on this.”

Another new law all but eliminates party-run caucuses to select candidates, but that applies only to regularly scheduled elections, not special elections. So, Democrats and Republicans will be conducting party-run nominating votes for a special election to a Loudoun state Senate seat this weekend.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

The Gonzaga men’s basketball team will reportedly host Virginia transfer Jalen Warley on a visit in the coming days.

According to college basketball insider Jon Rothstein, Warley will be in Spokane on Friday — when the Bulldogs host UMass-Lowell at the McCarthey Athletic Center — and Saturday before taking a trip to Ames, Iowa, for a visit with Iowa State. The 6-foot-7 senior told Rothstein earlier this week that he planned on visiting Gonzaga, Iowa State and Texas A&M, though he has not scheduled a date with the Aggies yet.

Warley was the first Cavalier to enter the portal during the 30-day window that was opened by Tony Bennett’s surprise retirement on Oct. 18. He indicated to Rothstein that he plans on taking a redshirt year for the 2024-2025 season.

Warley transferred to Virginia after spending three seasons at Florida State, where he briefly crossed paths with current Gonzaga assistant coach, R-Jay Barsh. Warley was a sophomore when Barsh was an assistant coach on Leonard Hamilton’s staff in 2022-23. Warley finished top 20 in the ACC in total steals (41, 17th) and assists (105, 18th) that season.

As a junior in 2023-24, Warley put up 7.5 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 33 games, including 32 starts. He once again finished in the top 20 in the ACC in total steals (42) and steals per game (1.3). Though Warley is known more for his reputation on defense, he did have three straight games with 10 or more points to end his season and had a 23-point outing against Louisville in February.

Warley won’t be eligible this season, though a commitment from him would be a big step toward replacing the six seniors on the roster who will graduate this spring. That includes all five starters plus 6-foot-7 wing Michael Ajayi, who came off the bench in Gonzaga’s wins over Baylor and Arizona State. Colgate transfer Braden Smith took a redshirt upon joining the Bulldogs this offseason and will likely play a crucial role in 2025-26.

Bennett retired roughly two weeks before the start of the college basketball season. He served 15 years as head coach of the Cavaliers, and under his leadership the program went 364-136 and won the national championship in 2019. Ron Sanchez was named the program’s interim coach for the 2024-25 season, though the school will conduct a national search to fill the full-time head coaching position after that.

What You Need to Know: Norwegian fishermen recently snagged an unusual “catch of the day”: the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine, USS Virginia. While halibut fishing, the Øygutt’s fishing net became entangled with the submarine’s propeller, dragging it over two nautical miles before finally detaching.

-This unique incident isn’t the first of its kind. A tragic 1999 event saw a British submarine accidentally snag a fishing vessel, leading to the vessel’s sinking and the loss of four crew members.

-These close calls underscore the dangers of crowded seas and the potential for deadly submarine-fishing vessel interactions.

Norwegian Fishermen Accidentally Snag U.S. Submarine Near Barents Sea

Many an angler has told of the big one that “got away,” but a group of Norwegian fishermen has a “whale of a tale” to tell to top all others. And a very big one did get away because it was nuclear-powered and filled with U.S. Navy sailors.

On Wednesday the fishermen were sailing for halibut near where the Barents and Norwegian Seas meet, but instead netted the U.S. Navy’s cruise missile attack submarine USS Virginia (SSN-774).

“We had just emptied the nets and put them out again, and [were] on our way back to shore at Sommarøya when we were called by the Coast Guard on channel 16 on the VHF-radio,” Harald Engen, the 22-year-old captain of the Øygutt, a 10 meter-long fishing vessel, told NRK Troms, per The Barents Observer.

It was truly the catch of the day, or perhaps for Engen a catch of a lifetime. It wasn’t an oversized halibut, but rather the submarine, which was on the surface when its propeller snagged the net, dragging it more than two nautical miles before it was finally cut off.

The crew of the Øygutt is out a net, yet, they can say a truly big one got away!

“I know about other vessels that have sailed over fishing nets, but no one out here has ever heard about a submarine doing so,” added Engen.

It Could Have Turned Tragic – A Lesson From History

The waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas are now increasingly frequented by NATO and Russian warships, and this isn’t likely the first time a military vessel has snagged a net in the area – and most certainly won’t be the last.

The oceans may be vast, but they’re heavily traveled. Subs and nets don’t mix.

In November 1999, the UK trawler Antares was off the coast of the Isle of Arran when she floundered and sank after her trawl line was snagged by the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-class nuclear-powered fleet attack submarine HMS Trenchant. The submarine had been engaged in a training exercise with a student in command, but under the supervision of a commanding officer.

In the early morning hours of November 22, 1999, a pair of vessels was detected on the surface by the sub’s sonar – in fact, there were three vessels. The submarine turned to avoid contact, but the crew soon heard a loud bang followed by scraping noises. After returning to periscope depth, two fishing vessels were spotted, and neither seemed to be in any distress. Unknown to the crew of HMS Trenchant at the time, it had snagged the trawl line from Antares.

Even after it was determined that the submarine had collided with a net, it was assumed to be from one of the trawlers spotted on the surface. Only later after the submarine returned to port and the damage became apparent – including to the sonar dome – was it determined that something far more serious had occurred. The Royal Navy’s submarine had snagged a fishing net, which was still attached to the fishing boat causing it to capsize. The trawler was then dragged along the surface before the wires snapped.

Antares sank to the seabed with all four of her crewmen on board. Even worse was the fact that any rescue operation wasn’t launched until eight hours after the incident occurred. That led to changes in how Royal Navy submarines operate near fishing waters – but it remains a reminder that in a battle between a fishing boat and a submarine, the fishermen should be lucky if the big one gets away or else they could be the catch of the day.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

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