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CLINTON, Iowa — When the history of the 2000 presidential campaign is written, Al Gore’s visit to this little Mississippi River town may be just a footnote–or, just perhaps, a turning point. As midnight neared, it was here, with confetti flying, a fast blues number blaring, their hands high overhead, that the vice president and his wife, Tipper, danced on an outdoor stage as though they were at a well-fueled fraternity party.

He looked like he could not have been happier.

“Any smooches, we go up points,” a senior advisor joked about the closely watched polls.

Four days after securing the Democratic presidential nomination and three days after beginning a boat and bus trip down the Mississippi, Al Gore, the man so often derided as a campaign robot, has come to life.

To be sure, happier poll reports since the convention have contributed to the sunny demeanor. The latest surveys show either a dead heat or a single-digit lead for either Gore or GOP nominee George W. Bush.

But senior aides also point to Gore’s choice of a vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, as a factor, because it helped him emerge from the shadow that is typical for a vice president.

“It was a confidence builder,” said a senior aide. “Now he has a No. 2, which makes him No. 1.”

Equally important is that the Democrats have long been planning for the post-convention stretch to election day, so they are now armed with a plan of attack and a message that they believe will lead to victory.

On Sunday, Gore displayed the strategy by melding a brief criticism of Republican health-care policies with his stump speech in a way that allowed his staff to argue that he is focusing on issues and specific solutions.

Taken together, the events Saturday night and Sunday reinforced the twin images the Gore campaign is seeking to project–a likable human being and a competent leader. He is the man who would dance onstage to celebrate his wife’s 52nd birthday and 12 hours later delve into policy differences with his rival, Bush.

The strategy is a showcase for Gore’s strength as a policy wonk while seeking to take advantage of Bush’s perceived weaknesses.

Within the Gore camp, aides say this turn is a reflection of the political calendar.

“In the spring, people are getting a general impression of the candidates,” said a senior political aide. “In the fall campaign, people start thinking about what’s at stake in the election.”

So Gore plans to talk about issues–namely, the economy, health care, education and the environment–that appeal to both the Democratic core and the swing voters peeled away from the Democrats by Ronald Reagan in 1980, the aide said.

“The more we get specific, the less the other guy looks specific,” he said.

As Gore headed downriver by boat Friday and Saturday, on a bus tour Sunday, and back on the boat today, he has focused on a core message: Keep the economy strong and use it to help all the people, not just the powerful.

On Sunday, in Muscatine, Iowa, Gore attacked Bush’s proposals to allow some private investment of Social Security funds. “What exactly is your plan on privatizing Social Security?” Gore rhetorically asked his rival. “Do you want to know the facts?” he asked the crowd. “Yes,” came the reply.

“Am I giving you too many specifics?” he added. “No!” his audience, on a sun-drenched courthouse lawn, called back.

Today and the rest of the week, his topic is likely to be tax cuts. Next week he plans to highlight success stories of the past eight years, to make the point that during the Clinton administration, the life of the country has taken great strides.

On Saturday night, before the spirited dance, Gore offered that theme and painted it in a frame of hope, even as he said of the nation, “We got problems, we’ve got problems aplenty,” and pleaded for the citizenry to abandon its distaste for politics and join him:

“You use the word politician out there and you see what goes across people’s minds. What do they say? Well, I won’t go into it,” he said, gaining a knowing laugh from an audience that waited as long as five hours to see the vice president, who was running nearly two hours late.

Gore continued:

“After everything that we’ve been through since the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy and Watergate, the Vietnam War, and all the stuff between then and now, it’s hard . . . to allow yourself to really believe that somebody who’s standing up here in front of you, pledging to work his heart out for you and make this country a better place to the best of his ability, really means it.

“Well, that’s what I’m asking you to do. To push past the fear of disappointment, being let down, disillusioned,” he said.

At times, and largely out of public view, Gore has presented a relaxed, even playful picture of himself since he left Los Angeles and the Democratic National Convention around midnight Thursday.

Encountering an NBC correspondent taping a stand-up, the vice president donned the sound engineer’s headphones and took hold of the boom microphone, while the taping continued uninterrupted.

As the party motored past an open railroad bridge, he seized a megaphone and shouted at the tender’s quarters at mid-span: “You got cable?”

The Mississippi offered Gore easy access to four crucial swing states: Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, his destination today. But more, the campaign is using it as a way to connect with the heartland.

“The river is such a major part of the American psyche and fabric,” one senior aide said.

What could be more evocative of good times than a sunny summer day on a riverboat? the vice president said in one encounter.

This weekend, there was no pretense of vacation, save for a few private moments for Al and Tipper Gore, who were accompanied part of the way by their eldest daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff and her husband, Drew, and part of the way by Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah.

To be sure, there was a staged aura to the trip–the boat, decorated with a banner shouting the slogan “Setting Course for America’s Future,” formed a picturesque backdrop for Gore’s shore-side visits. The voyage yielded inviting vistas of Wisconsin’s hills, the bluffs of Minnesota and campsites along the Iowa shore.

Crowds in La Crosse, Wis., a city of 60,000 where Gore and Lieberman began the trip, and those farther down the route were enthusiastic, spent hours awaiting the candidates, and repeatedly interrupted them with rowdy cheers.

But for all the chants of “Go Al, Go!” each day, for all the red, white and blue fervor pumped up by a high-volume recording of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days,” there were those as yet unconvinced.

Bob Hare came to see Gore in La Crosse, along with his wife, Sue, and their grandchildren.

“I told my wife he’s got a lot of good things, but how will it all get funded?” said Hare, an independent who voted Republican in 1996. As for Bush, he said: “I haven’t heard much of what he really plans on doing. I don’t know what his program is.”

In Dubuque, Iowa, John Seller, who owns a trucking company and voted twice for Reagan and then voted Democratic in the next three presidential elections, said he was moved by Gore’s speech last week at the Democratic convention.

“For the first time [Gore] came out and presented himself as the No. 1,” Seller said. At the same time, he said he saw Bush as “a bit hollow–I feel he has skated a bit on his father’s coattails.”

Throughout his trip, Gore plunged into his campaigning with fresh abandon, reaching over two and three people to shake hands deep in the crowd.

“I’m just getting warmed up,” the candidate said after his midnight dance with Tipper.

Jelly Roll has filed for divorce from Bunnie XO.

The country music star filed for divorce from his wife in Tennessee’s Williamson County on May 18, according to court documents obtained by People — TMZ broke the news. The announcement may come as a shock for country fans who have followed the couple through their sappy podcast appearances and gushy acceptance speeches.

Bunnie XO, who hosts the “Dumb Blonde” podcast, met Jelly Roll at one of his Las Vegas Country Saloon concerts in 2015. Then, a year later on a Las Vegas stage, the “Save Me” hitmaker popped the question.

The pair said their “I do’s” at a local courthouse later than night in a secret ceremony.

Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO have been candid on the podcast circuit about the ups and downs of their relationship. In Bunnie’s 2026 memoir, “Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic,” she wrote about Jelly Roll’s 10-month affair in 2018 and her subsequent emotional unraveling.

The couple also has been open about their struggle with IVF in recent years.

As recently as February, while accepting his win for contemporary country album for “Beautifully Broken,” Jelly Roll thanked Bunnie XO in his acceptance speech, saying that he wanted to thank his “beautiful wife” and that he’d be dead or in jail without her.

And during a 2023 appearance on “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast, Jelly Roll was overcome with emotion recounting his early days with Bunnie XO. “When Bunnie comes into my life, I have to sit Bunnie down and go, ‘Look, I have a kid that you know about that I’m fixing to have to get full custody of.’”

According to the Grammy winner, Bunnie had his back from the beginning.

“I don’t have a house, I’m homeless. So she’s like, ‘Well, the first thing we have to do is get you somewhere to live in Nashville.’ I was like, ‘Well, I can’t put it in my name, I’m a felon, I don’t have enough proof of income to get the kind of place we need to get her in the right school district.’

“Bunnie’s like, ‘Let’s just go get a condo, so you have a bedroom for her.’ … So Bunnie comes down, and we’re getting a condo. I’ll never forget, Bunnie looked at me, and, man, it makes me emotional. She said, ‘No matter what happens with us. I’m gonna help you get this little girl.’

“And I was like, man, what character this woman has,” he continued.

Hours before news of the couple’s split broke, Bunnie XO posted a video on Instagram dancing to Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me,” and mouthing the lyrics “I said I love you and I swear I still do.”

WASHINGTON — Dozens of House Democrats are asking the new director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to roll back a policy that they say hinders their ability to speak with detainees during oversight visits.

The new policy requires that lawmakers identify detainees by name at least two business days before a visit and provide a signed consent form from each detainee. It’s the latest point of conflict in an ongoing battle over when and how lawmakers can inspect immigration facilities.

In a letter Thursday to acting ICE Director David Venturella, Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) and 77 other members of Congress, including two dozen from California, argued that they need to conduct constant oversight of immigration facilities because of historic levels of reports regarding the mistreatment of detainees, deaths in custody and substandard facility conditions.

“This Administration has enabled a revolving door of arbitrary policies, directives, and guidance on member access to facilities or on communication with detainees designed to hinder any productive oversight,” they wrote.

The letter was written in response to the new policy, which was outlined in a memo last month.

In the letter, Levin and the other members wrote that detainees have a hard time accessing the visitation form because it is at times unavailable at a detention center’s law library. They said it limits their ability to speak broadly with detainees, particularly those from vulnerable populations, such as the elderly.

Detainees previously used a sign-up sheet to meet with members of Congress or just started talking to detainees they encountered during facility tours.

In the memo outlining ICE’s new policy, then-acting director Todd Lyons said the increased visits by members of Congress have become a burden and a time suck. Homeland Security didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, but previously said that the policy doesn’t prevent lawmakers from speaking with detainees.

Levin said the increase in visits was necessary because the agency slashed staffing of its oversight offices. The letter notes that for next fiscal year, the president requested additional cuts to the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.

“These actions, coupled with the constant changes to policies surrounding member access to facilities, reveal a clear attack on the levers that ensure government transparency at every level,” the members wrote.

Democratic House members sued the Trump administration last July after they were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities in California and across the country.

Homeland Security officials previously implemented a policy requiring lawmakers to give seven days’ notice before a visit, but that policy was temporarily blocked in federal court.

This week, lawyers said a Belizean man who helped organize hunger strikes at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center was moved to facilities out of state and scheduled to be deported after he spoke to three members of Congress about conditions at the detention center in San Bernardino County.

The quarter mark of a season isn’t necessarily a make-or-break point, but for the Sparks, it was starting to feel like it was close to it.

An 89-72 win over the expansion Portland Fire on Sunday to close a 1-2 homestand felt more necessary than the Sparks might have wanted to admit. But after struggling on the road before losing consecutive games at home against Las Vegas and Dallas amid a three-game losing streak, the Sparks needed something to go right.

Especially defensively, where the Sparks had seemingly been getting worse. They had their best defensive game of the season Sunday, holding Portland to 36% shooting — the second-lowest mark against them this season.

Kelsey Plum finished with 16 points and six assists and Nneka Ogwumike had a double-double with 20 points and 17 rebounds. Dearica Hamby had 22 points with 12 rebounds, a solid response for the veteran forward following her struggles in recent games.

Before the game, coach Lynne Roberts admitted that she would consider benching some players if things didn’t improve.

“That’s the stage we’re at,” she said. “So that’s where we’re at. So stay tuned.”

The Sparks (5-6) stuck with their usual rotation and held the Fire to 72 points, the fewest they’ve allowed in a game this season.

Plum didn’t register a shot attempt until early in the third quarter when she hit a mid-range jumper to go ahead 45-43. The Fire defense smothered her, and while Erica Wheeler and Ogwumike made some shots early, the Sparks mostly didn’t make Portland (6-7) pay for doubling up their star.

The Sparks went on an 8-0 run in the first quarter while the Fire struggled to make shots around the rim.

But the Sparks’ offense went cold in the second quarter, allowing Portland to come back to lead by two at halftime. Portland also dominated on the boards to get extra possessions.

The Sparks adjusted to open the third quarter with six consecutive points. Portland struggled to hold on to the ball and turned it over nine times in the third quarter, allowing the Sparks to outscore them 23-12.

Portland couldn’t recover and the Sparks capitalized on turnovers to pull ahead by as much as 18.

The Sparks will play at the Seattle Storm (3-9) next on Wednesday.