Mary Tillman said she was never consulted by the sports network to give the Duke of Sussex the Pat Tillman Award, which honors the late NFL safety-turned-Army Ranger who enlisted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“I am shocked as to why they would select such a controversial and divisive individual to receive the award,” Mary told the Daily Mail.
Prince Harry has been tapped to receive the Pat Tillman award at the ESPYS.
“There are recipients that are far more fitting,” she added. “There are individuals working in the veteran community that are doing tremendous things to assist veterans.”
The baffled mother also pointed out that Harry is already famous and has received plenty of awards in his life, so ESPN should have chosen someone else who’s never been in the spotlight.
The Pat Tillman Award has often been given to unsung heroes, with last year’s recipient being the Buffalo Bills training staff who revived Damar Hamlin, who had suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of a game.
Mary Tillman, Pat Tillman’s mother, said she was confused as to why ESPN would choose such a polarizing figure.Mary’s condemnation was echoed by ESPN analysts Pat McAfee, who accused his own network on Friday of“trying to piss people off” for picking Prince Harry.
“It’s going to Prince Harry,” McAfee said on his talk show, “who I don’t even think is a Prince anymore, right? He said don’t call me that? See, why does the ESPYs do this s–t?
“This is like actually the most embarrassing thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” he added.
In picking The Duke of Sussex and others to receive honors during the upcoming ESPY Awards (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly), Kate Jackson, VP, Production at ESPN, touted the recipients as those who have changed the world.
Tillman’s enlistment meant he gave up a lucrative career as a player for the Arizona Cardinals.
“These honorees have used their platforms to change the world and make it more inclusive for marginalized and suffering communities, demonstrating incredible resilience, positivity and perseverance, and we’re thrilled to celebrate them at the 2024 ESPYs,” Jackson said.
Despite being marred in controversy over his royal life, Harry — who served the British military for 10 years, including two tours in Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot — has been lauded for his role in launching the Invictus Games.
The Games, created in 2014, serve as a multi-sport, Paralympic-styled games for wounded or injured servicemen and veterans.
Harry had served in the British military for 10 years, including two tours in Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot.“This one is for our entire service community,” Harry said after learning that he will receive the Pat Tillman Award.
The Pat Tillman Award was created in 2014 and has been given to a person who has served in ways that echoes the legacy of Tillman.
Tillman, a former safety for the Arizona Cardinals, served in Iraq and then Afghanistan before he was killed by friendly fire in 2004, with the soldier posthumously awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his service.
Marine Le Pen called on voters to give the party an “absolute majority” at parliament.
French National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen arrives to vote in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, on June 30, 2024. French voters propelled the nationalist National Rally to a strong lead in first-round legislative elections Sunday, according to polling projections.
French polling agencies indicated that President Emmanuel Macron’s grouping of centrist parties could finish a distant third in the first-round ballot. Their projections put Mr. Macron’s camp behind both Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and a new left-wing coalition of parties.
Ms. Le Pen called on voters to give her party an “absolute majority” at parliament. She said a National Rally majority would enable the conservatives to form a new government with party President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in order to work on France’s “recovery.”
Projections by polling agencies suggest the National Rally stands a good chance of winning a majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time, with an estimated one-third of the first-round vote, nearly double their 18 percent in the first round in 2022. The party is building on its success in European elections that prompted Mr. Macron to dissolve parliament and call the surprise vote. The second round will be decisive but leaves open huge questions on how Mr. Macron will share power with a prime minister who doesn’t agree with most of his policies.
The two-round elections will wrap up on July 7.
Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and economic concerns, as well as Mr. Macron’s leadership, which some voters see as out-of-touch with their lives. France’s ongoing support for Ukraine is another issue on the table. Marine Le Pen’s nationalist National Rally party has dominated all pre-election opinion polls.
A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, is also posing a challenge to Mr. Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic.
There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament, during the two-round voting.
Turnout stood at an unusually high 59 percent with three hours to go before polls close. That’s 20 percentage points higher than turnout at the same time in the last first-round vote in 2022.
The first polling projections were expected at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), when final polling stations close. Early official results were expected later Sunday.
Mr. Macron voted at a polling station in Le Touquet, a small seaside town in northern France, along with his wife, Brigitte Macron. Earlier, Ms. Le Pen cast her ballot in her party’s stronghold in northern France.
French President Emmanuel Macron (R) casts his ballot to vote in the first round of the early French parliamentary election, in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, northern France, on June 30, 2024.
The vote takes place during the traditional first week of summer vacation in France, and absentee ballot requests were at least five times higher than in the 2022 elections.
After a blitz campaign, voting began early in France’s overseas territories, and polling stations opened in mainland France at 8 a.m. GMT Sunday. The first polling projections are expected at 8 p.m. GMT, when the final polling stations close, and early official results are expected later Sunday night.
Voters who turned out in person at a Paris polling station said issues from immigration to inflation and the rising cost of living were on their minds.
“People don’t like what has been happening,” said Cynthia Justine, a 44-year-old voter. “People feel they’ve lost a lot in recent years. People are angry. I am angry.”
Mr. Macron called the early elections after his party saw big losses in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally.
Pre-election polls suggested that the National Rally party is gaining support and has a chance at winning a parliamentary majority. In that scenario, Mr. Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in a power-sharing system known as “cohabitation.”
The results of the first round will give a picture of overall voter sentiment, but not necessarily of the overall makeup of the next National Assembly. Predictions are extremely difficult because of the complicated voting system, and because parties will work between the two rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others.
The party has also questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France and wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality.
In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls closed at 5 p.m. local time due to an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew that authorities on the archipelago have extended until July 8.
Violence there flared on May 13, leaving nine people dead after two weeks of unrest, due to attempts by the government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which the Indigenous Kanaks feared would further marginalize them. They have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific territory in 1853.
A Chinese rocket called Tianlong-3 suffered a catastrophic failure and fell from the sky not long after it lifted off, making a big explosion in the Henan province.
Below are the videos of the lift off and explosion:
“Wow. This is apparently what was supposed to be a STATIC FIRE TEST today of a Tianlong-3 first stage by China’s Space Pioneer. That’s catastrophic, not static. Firm was targeting an orbital launch in the coming months.”
The poster says China had already reached orbit with the Tianlong-2. They add that there are no reported casualties and explain what happened:
CNN host Dana Bash pressed Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi Sunday over a new CBS/YouGov poll showing 72% of Americans are worried about President Joe Biden’s mental fitness following the first presidential debate.
“Well what do they think about the other guy? Do they think that he has the integrity to be president after that performance? Let us not make a judgment about a presidency on one debate. Let‘s talk about what it means to people in their lives. And that‘s why you‘re not seeing much change in the polls on this,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi continued to go into the policy “differences” between Biden and Trump, first hitting on women’s reproductive rights and job creation as she claimed Biden is the better advocate for both issues.
“If you‘re concerned about saving the planet, you‘re a young person, you‘re caring about the planet and its future — Joe Biden, the first person in the Congress to pass a resolution to study climate change in the 80s, even before I was in Congress. A guy who goes to the fossil fuel industry and says, ‘Give me a billion dollars so I can reverse what had happened in the IRA to save the planet. The list goes on and on whether you‘re talking about guns and the rest,” Pelosi continued.
“Sixteen Nobel laureates said when it comes to inflation, if the other guy gets elected, inflation will soar because of his fiscal policies. So it‘s not about performance in terms of a debate. It‘s about performance in a presidency. I want you to know that the fact is that the reaction to the lies of Donald Trump is something maybe TV isn‘t focusing on, but people are. To have a debate where you have to spend half your time negating what he said because he knows nothing about the truth. One side of the screen you have integrity, the other side you have dishonesty,” Pelosi said.
The newly released poll was taken following the debate between Trump and Biden, in which the president could be seen freezing mid-statement as well as uttering not fully complete statements. Since the event, voter’s confidence in Biden’s mental and cognitive health for a second term has significantly decreased, data shows.
A poll from June 9 shows that 65% of voters stated Biden does not have the mental fitness for a second term while 35% stated they did, according to CBS News. However, that number rose drastically after the debate, showing 72% of voters agreed that Biden does not have the mental fitness while only 27% believe that he does, data shows.
