Conducted earlier this year and posted on Psychnet, while the minutiae of the research involved is behind a paywall, Psychnet's summary reveals that 44 straight male guitarists were surveyed for the study. While the results do reveal that some aspects of playing guitar are linked to a desire to get laid (which is a bit depressing - come on, lads, it's 2022), other aspects intrinsically linked to extreme metal are rooted in mens' desire to impress their fellow guitar bros. "There are two main competing hypotheses for the function of music: sexual selection or byproduct of the complexity of the human brain," the study states. "Although there is evidence that playing music increases male attractiveness, the sexual selection explanation may not be mutually exclusive to all types of music." The study goes on to highlight that extreme metal music in particular is a genre of rock that is dominated by men both on stage and off, so the "sexual selection" theory might not apply. "Extreme metal is a genre that is heavily male-biased, not only among the individuals that play this style of music, but also among the fans of the genre," it continues. "Therefore, it is unlikely that extreme metal musicians are primarily trying to increase their mating success through their music. However, musicians in this genre heavily invest their time in building technical skills (e.g., dexterity, coordination, timing), which raises the question of the purpose behind this costly investment. It could be that men engage in this genre mainly for status-seeking purposes: to intimidate other males with their technical skills and speed and thus gain social status." "To explore the reasoning behind investment in technical guitar skills," it explains, "a sample of 44 heterosexual male metal guitarists was recruited and surveyed about their practicing habits...sexual behavior...and feelings of competitiveness toward the same sex." Revealing the study's findings, the site notes: "The survey results indicated that time spent playing chords predicted desire for casual sex with women whereas perceptions of playing speed positively predicted intrasexual competitiveness (a desire to impress other men)."

Public defender Merrill Nordstrom walked into a Mississippi federal courtroom in May 2021 ready to challenge the no-knock search warrant behind her client’s arrest. It had happened two years earlier, after an informant bought less than a gram of marijuana from Antoine Bryant. Police broke open Bryant’s door with a battering ram, shattering the glass. Three children sleeping inside were startled awake. Police found no cache of drugs, but they did find a pistol Bryant wasn’t supposed to have. By the time Nordstrom asked a judge to toss out the evidence against Bryant, a year had passed since the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor during a no-knock raid in Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor’s death and the tactic that led to it had caused widespread outrage. It was time, Nordstrom said, for similar scrutiny of how these warrants were used in Greenville, the Mississippi Delta’s largest city. She had learned that most search warrants issued in Greenville were no-knock warrants, which allow law enforcement to barge into someone’s home unannounced. She suspected that many of those raids violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches. “When I saw that they had orchestrated a confidential informant to purchase $10 worth of marijuana, and based on that went and asked for a no-knock search warrant — that, to me, was really egregious,” Nordstrom said. “That’s not what the Fourth Amendment is for. That’s not what our government is supposed to do.” She faced a major obstacle. Though she had the search warrant for Bryant’s home, she couldn’t find records for most other raids in the city. The search warrants and supporting documents weren’t at the courthouse, even though the state Supreme Court’s rules require law enforcement to return warrants to the court. Instead they were at the Greenville Police Department, hidden from view because law enforcement agencies, unlike the courts, can claim a broad public records exemption over records in their possession.

The soldier is the 10th known Texas Guard member linked to the mission to die since its rapid expansion began in September 2021.

A British hiker is in an Italian hospital with extreme hypothermia after he tried to scale Mont Blanc without equipment or adequate clothing. Feda Hussein, 26, an aeronautical engineering graduate from Portsmouth, was close to death when he was rescued by helicopter from the Italian flank of the moun

Exchange Healthcare Program Manager Robin Williams shares his name with a celebrity. In 2004, he posed for a picture of him eating a hot dog, and became a celebrity himself.

When Brazos County officials removed an early voting location off Texas A&M University’s campus — a decision that spurred accusations of student voter suppression — at least one county commissioner cited poor voter turnout as a partial reason for the relocation. But data shows it was one of the county’s most popular early voting sites in recent general elections. Commissioner Nancy Berry, who oversees the precinct that includes A&M, mentioned turnout at the Memorial Student Center as a supporting factor in moving the polling location to College Station City Hall for November’s midterms, according to College Station’s newspaper, The Eagle. And she similarly told the Houston Chronicle the location traditionally had “second-to-last in voter turnout” of the five early voting locations — something that Kristina Samuel, an A&M senior and president of voter engagement group MOVE Texas A&M, said she was also told. According to Brazos County in-person voting data reviewed by The Texas Tribune, the MSC had the county’s second-highest number of early voters in the 2018 and 2020 general elections. The county’s data shows that the MSC received 56,439 early voting ballots in 2018. The number fell during the pandemic in 2020 to 14,717 early votes, but this was in line with dips at all other polling locations in the county.

We are keeping many people in prison even though they are no danger to the public, a jaw-dropping new statistic shows. That serves as proof that it’s time to rethink our incarceration policies for those with a low risk of reoffending. To protect those most vulnerable to covid-19 during the pandemic, the Cares Act allowed the Justice Department to order the release of people in federal prisons and place them on home confinement. More than 11,000 people were eventually released. Of those, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) reported that only 17 of them committed new crimes. That’s not a typo. Seventeen. That’s a 0.15 percent recidivism rate in a country where it’s normal for 30 to 65 percent of people coming home from prison to reoffend within three years of release. Of those 17 people, most new offenses were for possessing or selling drugs or other minor offenses. Of the 17 new crimes, only one was violent (an aggravated assault), and none were sex offenses.

As Tropical Storm Ian’s waters rose relentlessly inside Omayra Ramos’ first-floor apartment, seeping in through a slider door, then bubbling up from the toilet and tub, and finally bursting through a bedroom wall, so did terror in the 38-year-old disabled woman. “I felt like it was the end,” she said Tuesday, recounting her family’s ordeal at Cypress Landing Apartments. Ramos, whose power-wheelchair failed in the flood, escaped to a second-story apartment, carried by her mother’s boyfriend as the deluge ravaged the apartment complex, home to more than 200 families, on Winegard Road across from Oak Ridge High School. Though the water has receded, trouble for most renters got worse Monday. Many said they were notified by email by PMI Florida, the complex’ property manager, they had to get out by Halloween. The company cashed October rent payments before telling tenants they had to leave, some said.

Two former eBay executives were given prison time Thursday for their involvement in a cyberstalking scheme that targeted a couple behind an e-commerce blog that was perceived as critical of the company. James Baugh, eBay's former senior director of safety and security, was sentenced to almost five years in prison, while eBay's former director of global resiliency, David Harville, was given two years behind bars. Both pleaded guilty to charges in the case. Baugh, Harville, and a number of other eBay executives in 2019 hatched a campaign to harass Ina and David Steiner, the editor and publisher of eCommercebytes, a website closely followed by online sellers. Prosecutors said the executives went after the couple after former eBay CEO Devin Wenig and other leaders inside the company were enraged by their coverage of the company. What unfolded was a bizarre and convoluted "three-part harassment campaign" that was intended to "intimidate" the Steiners and influence their reporting on the company, prosecutors said in a statement. EBay executives repeatedly sent the couple harassing and threatening messages on Twitter. The campaign escalated further when the Steiners began to receive "disturbing deliveries" to their home outside of Boston, including a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and live insects, prosecutors said. Additionally, Craigslist posts appeared online inviting strangers to experience sexual encounters at the victims' home. Baugh, Harville and others also traveled from California to the Steiners' home to surveil the couple. They hoped to install a GPS tracker on the couples' vehicle, but the garage was locked, so Harville purchased tools to break in, according to prosecutors. Five other eBay employees have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the matter.

Stop giving these soulless dorks your money.

Maitland Jones Jr., a respected professor, defended his standards. But students started a petition, and the university dismissed him.

Almost everyone has felt the sting of rising prices. As of August, 60% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent LendingClub report — a number that hasn’t budged much since inflation hit 40-year highs. A year ago, the number of adults who felt stretched too thin was closer to 55%. Even high-income earners are feeling the strain, the report found. Of those earning more than six figures, 45% reported living paycheck to paycheck, a jump from the previous year’s 38%.

Unlike the affluent seaside communities of Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach, where the media has descended to chronicle every detail of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, the people who live in the squat homes in Dunbar have faced the crisis mostly on their own. And for many in the historically African American neighborhood, there's a sense of anger and frustration. "They're saying the islands got destroyed," observes 24-year-old Lexxus Cherry. "Well, we're destroyed, too. We're really messed up here." There's no electricity. Water comes out of the faucet, but it's little more than a thin brownish stream, unsafe to drink. A faint smell of sewage wafts up from the street. When people here call the power and water authorities, they get only vague assurances. No promises, and no timeframes.

At least 42 people are dead in Lee County, one of the areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Ian where rescue and recovery efforts are still ongoing. Local officials are now facing questions about why they didn't urge people in the path of the destructive Category 4 hurricane to evacuate sooner. Last Sunday — three days before the storm landed on the peninsula — the National Hurricane Center predicted that Ian could bring a storm surge of 4 to 7 feet from Englewood to Bonita Beach, which includes all of coastal Lee County. According to the county's emergency management plan from 2018, even a 10% chance of a six-foot storm surge is enough to prompt the evacuation of Zone A. That includes the barrier islands, the shoreline and inland areas along the Caloosahatchee River. But officials didn't order a mandatory evacuation at that time, even as neighboring Charlotte County required residents to go on Monday. Instead, Lee County authorities waited until Tuesday to institute mandatory evacuations for people expected to be in the areas most impacted by the storm.

Sorry Mario, your ass is in another castle

Elon Musk has offered to proceed with the Twitter deal at a price of $54.20 per share, two people familiar with the negotiations said, a stunning development weeks before the two sides were due to face off in a trial. Musk sent his new proposal in a letter overnight and Twitter is considering whether to accept the proposal, one person familiar with the situation said. The letter from Musk’s side said they were ready to close the deal and end all litigation, the person said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter whose frank songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia pulled her out of poverty and made her a pillar of country music, has died.

Following Parliament’s approval, EU consumers will soon be able to use a single charging solution for their electronic devices.

The satirical publication is supporting a Parma, Ohio, man fighting a civil case against police after his arrest for creating a parody Facebook page.

I contributed to The Hill TV’s “Rising” for three years. But one monologue defending Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Palestinians cost me my job.