The debate over the chaotic finish to Michigan’s narrow victory against Western Michigan does not look set to fade quickly.

For a brief moment, Western Michigan seemed to have completed a stunning college football upset over the Wolverines after swatting away a last-gasp Hail Mary as the final seconds ran out.

Then came the decision that changed everything. Officials put one second back on the clock, handing Michigan one more chance to escape. The Wolverines took full advantage, as Bryce Underwood heaved a 47-yard pass and connected with JJ Buchanan as time expired again.

The dramatic touchdown sealed a 13-12 Michigan win and sent the Big House in Ann Arbor into a frenzy, but the postgame conversation has centered almost entirely on the controversial officiating call that made the final play possible.

Across social media, frustrated fans have accused officials of favoring Michigan, with some claiming the game was “rigged” for one of college football’s wealthiest and most influential programs.

The Big Ten has since released audio and footage of officials making the decision, but fans quickly noted an apparent disparity between the game clock being used by officials and the one seen by fans watching on TV. 

The footage showed officials determining that Broncos No.18 Micah Davis had jumped from out of bounds, meaning the play was over as soon as he touched the ball.

They then flicked up the game clock and said, ‘When 18 is touching the football we’ve got one second on the clock’. That was seemingly not the case on the game clock seen by viewers on TV. 

A Big Ten statement accompanying the footage said: ‘Following video review, it was determined Western Michigan’s #18 started his jump from an established out-of-bounds position (left foot) and made contact with the ball with one second remaining on the clock. 

‘As shown in the provided video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling.

‘Eighty-five minutes prior to the game, all broadcast cameras used for the replay system, including the camera on the game clock, are synced using a strobe system to ensure all cameras are aligned,’ it added.

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The Big Ten cited NCAA football rule 4-2-3-a that a ‘ball not in player control, other than a kick that scores a field goal, is out of bounds when it touches the ground, a player, a game official or anything else that is out-of-bound, or that is on or outside a boundary line.’

One fan immediately asked: ‘Why is this clock completely misaligned with the clock the broadcast had, which they confirmed was in sync with the official game clock?’ as another said: ‘Oh ya you have a special clock only you can see the rest of us can’t, so that’s all that matters…’. 

Despite numerous responses still questioning the explanation, passionate Michigan fan Dave Portnoy responded: ‘It’s objectively hilarious that people thought Michigan, the crown jewel of college football, would blatantly cheat to win a football game. Integrity and character will always come before winning at Michigan. That what makes Michigan Michigan.’

And MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said both he and officials from Western Michigan accepted the Big Ten explanation of the decision after reaching out for more information. 

‘I commend Western Michigan for the outstanding effort and a well-played game, and I offer my congratulations to Michigan,’ he said in a statement.

‘I also appreciate the collaborative efforts of the Big Ten office and its prompt response in reviewing the play and providing the requested clarification.’

NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay was also confused as to what occurred on the broadcast, offering the new theory that the two game clocks were not aligned related to the Hawkeye system now used to register first downs. 

‘Our producer tells us that our in-set clock is in sync, is the actual the stadium clock,’ said McAulay. ‘The ball isn’t even close to touching a player when it goes to zero.

‘Now, their Hawkeye system apparently either had different sync or whatever, and they came up with one second when it touched the player. I don’t see how that happened, assuming our clock is correct. It is clearly not touching a player. The ball is clearly still in the air when the clock goes to zero on our screen.

‘So you know, the Big Ten is gonna have to tell a lot of us, how did they get to one second on this play?’

US peace negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday, as the Trump administration intensified its latest diplomatic effort to bring an end to Russia’s four-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine.

The meeting in the Ukrainian capital came shortly after Kushner and Witkoff traveled from Moscow, where they spent three hours in discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. Those talks, however, did not appear to produce any immediate breakthrough toward ending the conflict.

Earlier US-led attempts to broker peace, backed by President Donald Trump after his campaign pledge to swiftly stop the war, have so far made limited progress. On Friday, Trump indicated that Washington had put forward a new proposal, though he offered no details about what it included.

Putin called Saturday’s discussions “highly useful,” while a White House official told Reuters that further steps in the Ukraine peace process would be made public in the weeks ahead.

Kushner and Witkoff met Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials in central Kyiv as the renewed US diplomatic push continued.

Zelensky, who believes Washington will be key to any peace deal, has said a window of opportunity to make peace exists before the US begins focusing on its next presidential elections next summer.

In a post on social media before the envoys’ arrival, Zelensky said he had held a preparatory meeting with his negotiating team and said Ukraine wanted an end to the war.

“Security guarantees are needed. A dignified post-war peace is needed. Our proposals have been drawn up,” he said.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the British, French and German national security advisers were also in Kyiv on Sunday. The source did not specify which meetings they would participate in.

Cautious optimism on the streets of Kyiv

Witkoff and Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, have visited Moscow several times in their roles as peace envoys. But Sunday will be their first visit to Kyiv in their capacity as US negotiators.

Their visit has long been sought by Ukraine’s leadership, and on the streets of Kyiv, which has been bombarded heavily in recent weeks, some residents were hopeful.

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“The issue can be solved in the blink of an eye. We want peace. I’ve fought myself, so I know what war is like. We need peace, because there’s no other way,” said military veteran Stepan Yermak.

In previous talks, the sides have remained far apart on a range of key issues, including the future of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Russia has demanded Ukraine’s withdrawal from an entrenched belt of towns that it still controls there, but Kyiv has refused, reasoning that it can still hold on there for years.

For Ukraine, hard security guarantees from its European allies and the US are crucial to deterring Russia from invading again.

“We need an agreement that will never be broken,” said Svitlana Kurylenko, a 19-year-old cafe worker.

“Just leave Ukraine alone and let people live in peace.”

Temporary halt in strikes

Though the front lines of the ground war remain largely static, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have intensified long-range air strikes in recent weeks.

Russia has pounded the Ukrainian capital day and night with missiles and drones for the past two weeks, including an attack on Friday on the headquarters of the SBU security service.

The Kremlin has said it would pause strikes on Kyiv until Monday, while Zelensky has said Ukraine would also halt strikes on Moscow.

There was no let-up in fighting along the 1,200-km (750-mile) front, however, and Russia bombarded other Ukrainian cities on Saturday.

Ukraine has inflicted damaging hits throughout the summer on Russian refineries, oil terminals and the warehouses of online retailer Wildberries, in an attempt to raise the cost to Moscow of continuing the war.

Ukraine said on Sunday it had struck the Ryazan oil refinery, around 480 km (300 miles) inside Russia, overnight, causing a fire.

Delaware’s coastal communities are quietly emerging as a surprising retirement destination, as more Baby Boomers rethink the old playbook of heading to Florida or Arizona and search instead for a more affordable place to enjoy their later years.

Since 2020, Sussex County has welcomed more than 40,000 new residents, pushing the population of the largely rural seaside county up by 17 percent — roughly five times faster than the national growth rate, Bloomberg reported.

That wave of newcomers has also reshaped Delaware’s age profile. Census Bureau figures show the state’s population of residents 65 and older has climbed 23 percent since 2020, the biggest increase recorded anywhere in the country.

A major reason behind the retirement migration boom is Delaware’s growing reputation as a financially attractive alternative for older Americans.

Florida long held the title of a budget-friendly haven for retirees, but soaring home values and steep property insurance premiums have made the Sunshine State far less affordable for many people on fixed incomes.

Delaware, meanwhile, remains slightly cheaper than the national average and significantly more affordable than nearby states including New York, New Jersey and Maryland, according to US Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates.

The state also has no sales tax, while property taxes can be dramatically lower than those in neighboring states.

That has helped attract retirees from the Northeast, with some homeowners able to replace annual property tax bills of around $18,000 in New Jersey with bills closer to $1,500 in southern Delaware, Bloomberg reported.

Jason Gerstenberger, an independent insurance broker specializing in retirement income and wealth transfer, said retirees need to look at more than just state taxes when deciding where to move.

‘Retirees have to look at the full picture when pivoting to a fixed income,’ he said, pointing to property insurance, natural disasters and leisure costs.

Delaware property insurance averages around $1,374 annually compared with roughly $7,100 to $8,500 in Florida, based on recent surveys, Gerstenberger said.

‘Florida’s insurance bill alone can be larger than the entire state income tax bill a typical retiree would have in Delaware,’ he said. ‘People crunch the numbers and Florida loses a bit of its luster.’

The newcomers are also significantly older and wealthier than longtime residents.

Sussex County’s median age reached 53.2 last year, nearly five years higher than it was in 2015 and almost 14 years above the national average.

Families moving to Sussex from other states earned more than $136,000 annually, according to the latest available Internal Revenue Service migration data, compared with less than $92,000 among existing residents.

The pandemic accelerated the trend, with some homeowners turning beach vacation properties into year-round residences.

Others are drawn by the area’s proximity to major cities including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, allowing retirees to remain relatively close to family while enjoying a quieter lifestyle.

Towns including Lewes, Rehoboth Beach and Milton have seen an influx of older residents, while developers have responded by building large numbers of new homes farther inland.

Much of the new construction is marketed specifically toward people aged 55 and over.

But southern Delaware is no longer uniformly cheap.

The average price of a home sold in Sussex County was around $471,000 during the three months through June 2026, according to Alexei Morgado, a Florida real estate agent and founder of Lexawise.

‘Southern Delaware, especially the part near the coast, can no longer be said to be affordable,’ he said.

The population boom is also putting pressure on the very amenities that attracted retirees in the first place.

Sussex’s roads, hospitals, schools and other services are struggling to keep pace with the rapid growth, while increasing development has fueled complaints from longtime residents and newcomers.

Traffic has become an increasingly visible problem, particularly along Route 1, as tourists heading to the beach compete with residents navigating their daily commutes.

However, despite the rapid acceleration of infrastructure, healthcare remains a major concern.

Sussex County was already classified as medically underserved before the recent population surge, and the number of residents aged 80 and over is projected to more than double by 2040.

Gerstenberger said the healthcare system is struggling to keep up with the influx.

‘There’s 130 primary care doctors for over 271,000 people,’ he said. ‘Most people moving in have no idea of how inundated the healthcare system is here due to the boom.’

He said the biggest concern is that new housing is being approved faster than doctors and other healthcare workers can be recruited.

‘New buildings are getting approved faster than doctors are getting recruited,’ he said, warning that the shortage could hit the growing Medicare population particularly hard.

Beebe Healthcare, the county’s main hospital, has responded by expanding its workforce and facilities. It has hired more than 50 doctors in four years, a 47 percent increase, and launched a family medicine residency program.

But the growing population has created another problem: finding enough workers to support the expanding healthcare system.

For every new doctor, the hospital needs roughly six additional support workers, according to Bloomberg, and many of those employees struggle to afford housing close to their jobs.

The influx has also transformed the local economy.

The number of business establishments in Sussex County jumped 49 percent between 2020 and 2025, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, while nearly 100 restaurants have opened.

But the rapid development could eventually threaten the qualities that made the area attractive to retirees.

Morgado said the beach access, relaxed lifestyle and relatively affordable cost of living are the region’s biggest draws, but those advantages could deteriorate if growth is not properly managed.

Sussex County’s population reached an estimated 277,140 in 2025, up from 237,378 in the 2020 Census, while the county issued 3,885 building permits in 2025, according to Morgado.

The county’s growth is now becoming a major political issue, with development and concerns over overcrowding taking center stage in local elections.

Then there are the concerns about property taxes.

Sussex County recently completed its first property tax reassessment since 1974, and Gerstenberger said some tax bills along the coast jumped between 200 and 500 percent.

There is another tax catch for newcomers: Since 2018, retirees have had to live in Delaware for 10 years before becoming eligible for the state’s Senior School Property Tax Credit.

Despite the concerns, the area’s fundamental appeal remains strong.

‘The main reasons why people go there in the first place aren’t going away just because more people move in,’ Gerstenberger said. ‘The beach is still the beach.’

Morgado expects the migration to continue, with development increasingly moving inland as coastal communities become more expensive and crowded.

‘Five to ten years from now the beach towns will be totally full so the growth will spill inland,’ he said.

‘The farm fields everybody sees while driving in and out of town will all be subdivisions.’

The challenge, he said, will be expanding the region while preserving the qualities that made it attractive in the first place.

Long days on the set of New Girl often stretched deep into the night — and for the cast, one of the toughest challenges sometimes came after filming wrapped: making it home safely.

Zooey Deschanel has opened up about the exhausting routine she and her co-stars faced, saying they were “forced to drive home” after work because “none of us had rides to work.”

“The hours were insane,” Deschanel said while speaking with fellow New Girl alum Jake Johnson on Wednesday’s episode of his podcast, We’re Here to Help. “I would drive home from work and be almost like falling asleep.”

At times, the late-night drives became so difficult that Deschanel turned to her mother for support.

“My mom would wake up in the middle of the night because I’d be like, ‘I’m so tired. I can’t drive home,’” she recalled. “And she would wake up to talk to me so I’d stay awake. Isn’t that really sweet?”

Johnson agreed. The actor said the schedule was “too much,” and a recent shoot with New Girl alum Damon Wayans Jr. apparently brought some of those memories back.

Johnson and Wayans recently spent a long day filming their upcoming comedy series inspired by The Cable Guy, and Johnson said he was reminded of what happens when a shoot stretches well past a normal workday.

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“You get so weird because you’re so overtired,” he said. “So all of a sudden, we’d be in takes again and I was doing stuff really just to make Damon laugh and he’s doing stuff to make me laugh. And I’m like, you only get here after hour 13 when you’re like, ‘I have to go home now.’”

Of course, the long days don’t seem to have left the New Girl cast with too many bad memories. The stars have continued to speak fondly about the sitcom, which ran for seven seasons, and there’s even been some recent talk of bringing it back.

Max Greenfield added fuel to those revival rumors in July when he said that creator Elizabeth Meriwether had written new scripts.

“I’m not gonna play the game,” Greenfield said on the Today show. “As far as I know, it’s happening.”

So, if the New Girl gang really does return, here’s hoping they get a little more sleep this time around.

Check out the full episode of We’re Here to Help with Zooey Deschanel above.

Germany’s political establishment is bracing for a major shock in the country’s east, where polls suggest working-class communities and younger voters could hand the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) a historic win in Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt state election.

The AfD, which received a high-profile endorsement from Elon Musk during last year’s national election, has long faced scrutiny over its pro-Russia positions. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has also accused the party of operating as a “right-wing extremist endeavor.” Now, the AfD is within reach of something no party outside Germany’s traditional political power centers — the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the center-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) — has achieved since World War II: an outright majority in a state parliament, known as a Landtag.

“The reason Saxony-Anhalt matters,” Daniel Schatz, a foreign policy analyst, author and political science doctorate from Berlin’s Humboldt University, told News Media, “is that the AfD is no longer just knocking on the door of power. It may be close to kicking it open.”

Smaller parties have previously played leading roles in coalition governments at the state level, but since the Federal Republic of Germany was re-established in 1949, no party beyond the SPD, CDU or CSU has governed a German state alone with a single-party majority.

Janek Treiber, a political science researcher at Dresden University of Technology, told News Media that if the AfD does win outright in Saxony-Anhalt, their policy influence would be limited due to the German federal system, but warned “you must not underestimate the political symbol this would give. That a single party, and a right-wing party, could rule a German state… The symbol that these parties, that have been ruling Germany since 1949 or the East since 1990, they now lose control. They now lose power. I think this is a much more important symbol than just saying, OK, (the) AfD will change this or that in its local school system or university system.”

Schatz described the AfD “a nationalist, anti-immigration party on the far right that has become a powerful vehicle for voter anger at Germany’s political establishment — especially in the former East Germany. It campaigns for much tighter immigration, a stronger emphasis on German national identity, rejection of much of the green agenda and a softer line toward Russia.”

An outright win for the AfD, even in Germany’s 6th smallest state, would break through the political establishment’s so-called “Brandmauer,” or “firewall.” Simply put, other parties refuse to work with the AfD, which is currently the second-largest party in the Bundestag, officially the opposition party, after winning 20.8% of the vote in the February 2025 federal election.

In an interview on German broadcaster ZDF, the AfD’s national co-chair, Alice Weidel, advocated for closing Germany’s borders and exiting Europe’s Schengen treaty, saying, “Illegal migration, unchecked open borders, anyone can get in. Our internal security is suffering. People are honestly fed up with this situation.”

Weidel added, “All Syrian refugees must have their protected status revoked because the reason for their flight no longer exists. These people must return to their homeland. If they don’t leave voluntarily, then they must be deported by force.” Adding that many of the 1.3 million Syrians in Germany are being naturalized, “we must stop naturalizing these people who should actually be leaving our country. We have Islamization.”

In May 2025, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) classified the AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” group, citing “anti-migrant positions and an ancestry-based definition of German identity.” This past February, according to Deutsche Welle, that classification was put on hold by a German court after “Judges found that while there was evidence of potentially unconstitutional statements and policies within the AfD… it said that there was not sufficient evidence to characterize the party as a whole as extremist.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently told state broadcaster ARD, “I cannot imagine international investors attending a ground-breaking ceremony with an AfD Minister-President to set up new plants and establish new businesses in Saxony-Anhalt… However, that is a decision for ​the voters in Saxony-Anhalt to make. The state will suffer ⁠considerable damage if things turn out as we now fear they ​might.”

This has done little to damage the popularity of the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund. In a state of just over 2 million people, he has a TikTok following of over 700,000.

A Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) report said Siegmund’s “polished appearance and professional tone lend respectability, and radical demands blend with footage of a community-oriented politician responding to audience questions… The AfD’s physical presence in the streets and omnipresence in the media helps to push the common populist ‘us versus them’ narrative: The AfD is here for you, the other parties are not.”

According to the independent, non-partisan German website Wahlrecht.de, which tracks federal and state election polling, ahead of Sunday’s vote in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD holds a 41%-23% lead over the CDU, followed by three leftist parties. A party or a coalition needs at least half of the seats to control parliament and name a state Minister-President, essentially a governor. So how can a party with only 43% win an election outright? That comes down to Germany’s unique election system.

“German voters cast two ballots,” Schatz says, “One for a local candidate — like voting for your congressman – and one for a party. That second vote, the party vote, is the one that counts. It decides how many seats each party gets in parliament.” But there is a caveat: “Any party that falls below 5% gets nothing — zero seats — and those votes are effectively thrown out. Right now, several smaller parties are hovering right at that line. If they miss it, 42% or 43% of the vote can translate into more than half the seats. So Saxony-Anhalt could wake up to an AfD majority government even though a clear majority of voters chose someone else. That would be a first in postwar Germany.”

The CSIS report said voters are drawn to the AfD “because, or despite of, its extremist ideology. 60.5% of AfD voters hold a right-wing extremist worldview… At the same time, more than two in five AfD voters think that the party does not sufficiently distance itself from right-wing extremist positions.” The report also found that AfD’s “strongest recent gains have been among voters 18–25 years old, where the party tripled its results compared to the 2021 national election.”

Treiber said economics is pushing younger voters to the AfD, due to rising expenses and unemployment. He also said that younger voters are “kind of polarized because the other part of the youth in Germany is voting for the left party (Die Linke).”

Saxony-Anhalt may just be the beginning for the anti-establishment parties. Voters in neighboring Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where former Chancellor Angela Merkel grew up and began her political career, go to the polls in two weeks. Polling data from Wahlrecht.de shows the AfD leading the ruling SPD 35%-32% there. 

Conversely, in Berlin, where voters in the capital also go to the polls in two weeks, the average of recent polling has the far-left Die Linke in a dead heat with the CDU at 20%, followed by the AfD at 18%, with the Greens and the SPD each around 15%. While the majority of the AfD’s support does come from the former East Germany, the party is represented in 14 of Germany’s 16 state legislatures and holds 15 of Germany’s 96 seats in the European Parliament.