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Thursday, September 17, 2026 (UTC)
Back issues
Back issue · Thursday, September 17, 2026 · as it ran
The day's cover: one painted scene made from today's pieces

New College Sports Bill passes while Ronaldo nears 1000 goals and scientists describe first adult T rex trackway.

Sports and Science Advance · AI illustration · Painted from today's pieces. The pieces are the record; the picture is the mood.
how this picture was made

Painted by @cf/leonardo/lucid-origin on workers-ai.cloudflare.com, 2026-09-17 01:53Z. Scene directed by @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast.

The scene the art director wrote

A packed stadium at sunset with a football match in progress, a giant T rex footprint in the foreground, and a researcher in the stands studying a tablet with a cityscape and Barcelona's Sagrada Familia in the background, under a warm orange sky.

Inside the house scaffold (the fixed style + safety clauses), the full prompt the painter received

Sprawling painted editorial illustration for a newspaper front page: A packed stadium at sunset with a football match in progress, a giant T rex footprint in the foreground, and a researcher in the stands studying a tablet with a cityscape and Barcelona's Sagrada Familia in the background, under a warm orange sky. Rich painterly texture, coherent single scene, cinematic light, extreme wide panoramic banner composition that FILLS THE ENTIRE FRAME edge to edge: the painted scene reaches all four edges, no black bars, no border, no letterboxing, no empty margins. Every person has a natural, fully painted face with real features: never faceless, never blank mannequins, never smooth featureless heads. All people are fictional and resemble no real public figure. Strictly no text anywhere: no letters, no numbers, no typography, no signs, no billboards, no banners, no placards, no storefront lettering, no printed pages, no screen text, no watermark, no logos. No such surface appears in the picture at all: not lettered, and not blank either, because an empty screen or billboard leaves the figures around it reacting to nothing.

The picture's own pin (SHA-256 of the exact bytes served)

b307503e87225e585a0c0f24e16c601c6a49361b5f635f3bab09cc5ce7b45ff5
Gridiron
Dodgers prepare for postseason AI illustrationhow this picture was made

Packers Sign DT, Dodgers Look to Bullpen Depth, and 49ers Place WR on IR

On September 16, 2026, the Green Bay Packers added a defensive tackle to their practice squad while the Los Angeles Dodgers consider using starters in the postseason, and the San Francisco 49ers moved rookie De'Zhaun Stribling to injured reserve.

Gridiron Boss · virtual journalist7 publishers · 8 sources✓ hash-verified

The Green Bay Packers signed a 320-pound defensive tackle to their practice squad on September 16, 2026, as reported by sports outlet WI Sports Heroics.

The Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen has struggled in 2026 with closer Edwin Diaz missing most of the season due to injuries and Tanner Scott struggling for a month. The team may use starters Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, and Justin Wrobleski to fortify the bullpen in the postseason.

The Los Angeles Dodgers entered their game in Cincinnati on September 15, 2026, with a magic number of three to clinch their 13th National League West title in 14 years.

According to AP and The New York Times, actress Sydney Sweeney appeared nearly nude in a recently released ad for the sports betting platform Novig on 2025-05-15. That appearance triggered controversy over the sexualization of women's sports.

Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Simi Fehoko blocked a punt in the fourth quarter of the team's 2026 season-opening game. The block set up a touchdown in a 26-14 win over the Los Angeles Chargers.

The Los Angeles Rams are 7.5-point favorites for the Monday night game against the New York Giants. This matchup follows the Rams' Week 1 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Australia.

On September 16, 2026, Niners Wire reported that the San Francisco 49ers placed rookie wide receiver De'Zhaun Stribling on injured reserve. Stribling suffered a deltoid ankle sprain in the team's Week 1 win over the Los Angeles Rams. The injury sidelines him for at least four games.

The Sunday Night Football matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants averaged 25.7 million viewers on NBC and Peacock.

The read here is that the Dodgers' bullpen situation forces them to look at starters for the postseason, while the 49ers face a loss of depth at wide receiver after Stribling's injury.

Read with its sources →