Notebook: Kansas Prepares for Football Season

The Rock Chalkboard

KU football program ready handle increased expectations as the 2023 season nears
With preseason camp starting for KU Football today, excitement and expectations surrounding the program have been as high as they have been in a long time. With last year’s season proving the most successful in years along with the Jayhawks’ first bowl berth since their 2008 Orange Bowl victory, the expectation to be even better has been a constant theme coming into 2023.

Bill Self, Kevin McCullar break down the added advantages of upcoming Puerto Rico trip
For the first time since 2017, KU will take an off-season trip, this time to Puerto Rico. The trip will feature three total scrimmages with one coming against a Puerto Rico Select Team and the other two coming against the Bahamian National Team. Not only does the trip give KU a chance to build more chemistry with a new-look roster, but it also offers the chance for the Jayhawks to match up with some of the NBA’s best.

Summer Scouting Series: Best of the EYBL's 2024 Scoring Guards
The 2023 Nike Elite Youth Basketball season has come to an end. After four regular season sessions, culminating with the Peach Jam, Team Takeover took the EYBL championship while Nightrydas Elite took the E16 title and Team CP3 the E15.

Rich Miller talks KU's Detroit pipeline, incoming freshman Jameel Croft
Detroit has become a fruitful recruiting ground for the Kansas football program since Lance Leipold brought assistant coach Chris Simpson with him to KU. Simpson has been recruiting the area for a long time and brought his extensive contacts book with him to Lawrence. As a result, KU has brought in several quality players from the area over the last 24 months.

Bits o Chalk

USWNT ratings vs. Portugal: Smith sums up struggles in draw - ESPN
AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- The United States women's national team needed only to avoid defeat against Portugal to advance to the knockout phase of the Women's World Cup. The reigning champions did that, but at the bare minimum, with a 0-0 draw and a performance that was far from inspiring.

Andonovski hits back at Lloyd's criticism after USWNT draw - ESPN
AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- United States women's national team coach Vlatko Andonovski hit back at criticism from former player Carli Lloyd, calling it "insane" to doubt the players' drive to win after a listless 0-0 draw vs. Portugal in the Women's World Cup on Tuesday.

Top European prospect Zvonimir Ivisic commits to Kentucky - ESPN
Zvonimir Ivisic, one of the top European prospects in his age group, has committed to Kentucky in the class of 2023, he announced on social media Tuesday.

Eraser Dust

Turns Out Rep. Tricia Cotham, North Carolina Abortion Traitor, Was a GOP Plant All Along
The saga of North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham (R) is a strange one: She was a vocally pro-choice Democrat who revealed in 2015 that she’d had a medically necessary abortion, then won her old seat in November 2022 only to defect to the Republican party in April and give the GOP a supermajority that they used to pass an abortion ban. Now, new reporting shows that local Republicans urged her to run as a Democrat—fooling voters in her very blue Charlotte-area district into thinking she strongly supported abortion rights—and were planting the seeds for her party switch for months.

Lori Vallow Daybell is sentenced in 'zombie' murders of her 2 children in Idaho : NPR
Judge Steven Boyce sentenced Lori Vallow Daybell to multiple fixed life terms in prison with no possibility of parole on Monday, handing down punishment for murdering two of her children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival.

Chinese zoo denies its sun bears are people in costume | CNN
A zoo in eastern China has denied suggestions that some of its bears were people dressed in costume after videos of a Malayan sun bear standing on its hind legs – and looking uncannily human – went viral, fueling rumors and conspiracy theories on Chinese social media.

Phoenix ends record 31-day streak of above 110-degree weather
Phoenix record-breaking hot streak of 31 consecutive days of 110 degrees or higher came to an end Monday, when temperatures at the city’s airport reached just 108, the National Weather Service said.

The Ugly Honesty of Elon Musk’s Twitter Rebrand - The Atlantic
As my colleague Charlie Warzel explained last week, Musk has been trying to make X happen for decades now; PayPal arose from a merger with his X.com website. Now he’d like for X to be a superapp, a platform for chat, banking, news, shopping—everything. Musk’s insistence on packaging that idea, already megalomaniacal, with a logo that resembles a nerdy middle-school boy’s notebook doodle underscores a difficult truth: Nerdy middle-school boyhood, once a phase to be outgrown, has become a philosophy of life. “Anyone else look at the icon and not even want to open this app?” the Chicago-based product designer Chad Ashley tweeted—err, posted on X. He’s right. It’s embarrassing.

DeSantis Donors Want Him To Stop ‘Blowing Money On Fucking Memes’ – Rolling Stone
If cratering polling and campaign finance woes weren’t enough, the Florida Governor’s run for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination was also marred in recent weeks by two instances of poorly thought out posting. Leaked chat messages obtained by Semafor have revealed members of Ron DeSantis’ campaign staff discussing the creation and distribution of controversial videos to social media “anons” unaffiliated with the campaign.

DeSantis Donors Want Him To Stop ‘Blowing Money On Fucking Memes’ – Rolling Stone
If cratering polling and campaign finance woes weren’t enough, the Florida Governor’s run for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination was also marred in recent weeks by two instances of poorly thought out posting. Leaked chat messages obtained by Semafor have revealed members of Ron DeSantis’ campaign staff discussing the creation and distribution of controversial videos to social media “anons” unaffiliated with the campaign.

Taco Bell is sued for false advertising of Crunchwraps, Mexican pizzas | Reuters
NEW YORK, July 31 (Reuters) - Frank Siragusa was not happy that the Mexican Pizza he paid $5.49 for at a Taco Bell in New York City last September appeared to contain only half as much beef and bean filling as the photo in the chain's advertising. So he sued.

In a proposed class action filed on Monday in Brooklyn federal court, Siragusa accused Taco Bell of deceiving consumers by falsely advertising its Mexican Pizza, Veggie Mexican Pizza, Crunchwrap Supreme, Grande Crunchwrap and Vegan Crunchwrap as containing "at least double" their actual content.

'Star Wars' Lead Mark Hamill Calls On Users To "Refrain From Tweeting On August 1st" In Order To Send A Message To Elon Musk - Bounding Into Comics
While most users have found themselves understandably frustrated with Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter/X, Star Wars star Mark Hamill has unsurprisingly made a performance out of his outrage by calling on users to protest the site’s new ownership by refraining from using any of its services for an entire day.

This Line in 'Barbie' Made a Viewer Issue a 'Warning' To Other Women
“Just a warning about the beginning of the Barbie movie — when they’re accepting their awards, they don’t say, ‘thank you,’ they say, ‘I worked really hard for this and I deserve it,’” she says in the video. “… And it will truly make you feel like you can walk through a wall.” Yup, the Barbies of Barbieland, where women reign supreme, know that they can take ownership of their achievements without feeling like they have to owe it to anyone else and they’re reminding us to do the same.