After weeks of airport meltdowns and unpaid security agents, the Senate finally blinked. In a late-night vote that stretched into the early hours of Friday morning, lawmakers passed a funding bill to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security, a move aimed squarely at ending the travel nightmare and getting TSA agents paid again. The deal comes after a brutal 42-day partial shutdown that left travelers stuck in massive lines, airports understaffed, and TSA officers working without pay. Some quit. Others called out. The result was exactly what you would expect. Chaos. Now, relief may be on the way. The bill funds most DHS operations and is expected to restore pay for TSA workers, easing pressure on airports that have been pushed to the brink. The deal on the table still needs to clear the House before heading to President Donald Trump’s desk, but momentum is clearly there after the overnight breakthrough. There is a catch. The legislation leaves out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Border Patrol, setting up the next fight in Washington. That battle is not going away. It is just been delayed. Democrats were quick to claim they “held the line” on immigration provisions. Republicans, meanwhile, moved to act as airport conditions deteriorated and the need to get TSA agents paid grew more urgent. Trump had already signaled he was ready to step in to make sure TSA agents could receive paychecks again and provide for their families, with or without Congress, which raised the stakes on lawmakers to get something done. They finally did. At 2 a.m.

Here’s something you probably don’t realize about how Hollywood works. I know I wasn’t familiar with it. But it turns out that, for some of the biggest franchises in the industry, studios often sign “use-it-or-lose-it agreements.” What this means is that they buy the rights to a franchise for a certain number of years. But if they fail to make any progress towards making a film after a while, then they run the risk of losing the rights entirely. So studios can’t buy the rights to a major franchise, and then take a long time figuring out what kind of movie they’re going to make. They’re under pressure to produce content quickly. For “Spider-Man,” for example, Sony committed to begin production on new films within “3 years and 9 months of their last release, and they must get it into theaters within 5 years and 9 months of their last release.” This has been standard in the industry for a long time. The very first film adaptation of “The Hobbit” was made in 1967. The film was just 12 minutes long, and was produced in less than a month. Source: RembrantFilms/YouTube.com You can see the quality of the animation, or lack thereof. It’s really just a few drawings that the camera zooms in on. The only reason for the film’s existence was to allow the producer to keep the license to “The Lord of the Rings,” so that he could sell it back to the Tolkien estate for a $100,000 profit. So he scrambled to put together this atrocious production — where the One Ring doesn’t even do anything, and the animation doesn’t animate — in order to hold onto the rights. More recently, New Line Cinema acquired the rights to the film adaptations of “The Lord of the Rings” — and it cost them a lot more than $100,000. But the same general rule applies to New Line Cinema: New Line is compelled to pump out new “Lord of the Rings” content, or else they’ll lose the deal. It doesn’t matter how bad or pointless the content may be. They’re contractually forced to have something in motion. That’s why, in 2024, something called “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” was released. You’ve probably never heard of this film. Apparently it was some kind of “anime.” Source: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Animation. And as you can see from this poster, the protagonist was a woman — the “fiercely independent daughter of the legendary King of Rohan.” For obvious reasons, no one watched this film. No one liked it. It wasn’t actually based on anything in the books. They took a no-name character from a footnote in an appendix of “Return of the King,” and they made her the protagonist. And they wrote a script very quickly, too. According to Variety, “The animated film was developed and fast-tracked to ensure that New Line Cinema didn’t lose the film adaptation rights for Tolkien’s novels while Jackson and the teams behind the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Hobbit’ trilogies were working on two new live-action films for 2026 and beyond.” The first of those live-action films has been titled “The Hunt for Gollum.” It’s slated to come out next year. Everyone already knows it will be horrible, because it has no reason to exist. There’s a reason Tolkien didn’t devote much time to this particular series of events in the books — it’s simply not that interesting. It’s also a prequel with absolutely no stakes, because we all know how the story turns out. We know Gollum is captured and gets away, and then the next movie happens. But they have to make “The Hunt for Gollum,” or else they’ll lose the movie rights. They’re contractually obligated to pump this garbage out. They can’t take ten years and come up with a compelling or interesting film. They have to produce it right now. And then once they’re done with this one, they need to have a follow-up in the pipeline. The pace is relentless, by design. And here’s the key point: While the studios would prefer that the movies do well, that’s actually a secondary objective. Their primary goal is to simply get a movie out — any movie — so that they can hold onto the rights for as long as possible. And the so-called “creative team” — the writers and the executives — understand that mandate very well. They know that, when executives are desperate for a film, it’s extremely easy to inject obvious, lazy feminist propaganda into an established story. And that’s exactly what’s happening now to “The Lord of the Rings.” It was evident in that atrocious “anime” film that no one watched. And it’s especially evident in the new “Lord of the Rings” film that’s going to be written primarily by Stephen Colbert and his nepo baby son. (Which — already — gives the game away. Colbert’s only relevant experience for this gig is that he destroyed late-night television, which used to be a major part of American culture. And precisely because of that recent experience — not in spite of it — Colbert has been brought onboard to obliterate the relevance of “Lord of the Rings,” one of the great landmarks in Western literature). Watch:

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would sign an order directing the Department of Homeland Security to pay the Transportation Safety Administration despite the ongoing partial government shutdown. Trump blamed Democrats in the Senate for showing more concern for illegal aliens than for the American people and continuing to block funding for DHS. “The Radical Left Democrats, and their ‘Leader,’ Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, have made it very clear where they stand, and that is, ON THE SIDE OF CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS, AND NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “They are refusing to fund Immigration Enforcement unless the Republicans agree to their Open Border Policies, which will never, ever happen again.” The president went on to attack Democrats for allowing millions of illegals to enter the United States unvetted during previous administrations: “They almost destroyed our Country, allowing 25 Million People to enter from Prisons, Mental Institutions, and Insane Asylums, those that are Drug Dealers, and thousands of Murderers, many of whom killed more than one person.” Trump concluded with his plan to solve the problem: and executive order that would direct newly-sworn-in Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents immediately. “Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!” he explained. “Therefore, I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports. I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer.” Democrats have repeatedly voted against funding for DHS, demanding reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before they will sign off on the package. Among their demands are judicial warrants for immigration enforcement actions and a ban on masks for federal immigration agents. The resulting partial government shutdown has impacted pay for the TSA in addition to the U.S. Coast Guard and several others agencies.

Sometimes a news event comes along that is so chillingly horrific that it confirms the presence of the devil in our midst. Thursday’s murder of a young woman by the state through euthanasia certainly qualifies. This particular case also contains a warning: it is happening in Europe as a result of societal trends that are also gathering speed in America. These include family breakdown, secularization, the growth of the state, and the resulting embrace of a culture of death by the bureaucracy, the media, and the Left. And this was not a one-off. Noelia Castillo Ramos, in Spain, is the second young woman in less than three years to be euthanized by a European state. In fact, the two cases are alarmingly similar. Noelia and Milou Verhoof, who was euthanized in the Netherlands in 2023, were both raped as mere girls, understandably fell into depression, and eventually asked the state to help kill themselves. And the state was only too happy to oblige. The case of Noelia — killed at a hospital near Barcelona — has drawn worldwide attention online, which is itself proof that the desire to cling to life is a basic human instinct. Noelia suffered a lot in her life. The Spanish government took custody from her parents 12 years ago when she was just 13, after they divorced, fell into hard times, and lost their house. Her father, Gerónimo, drank at the time, according to news reports. The Catalan regional government, of which Barcelona is the capital, then placed her in a state-supervised youth center. It was there that Noelia was gang-raped by three young men who were reportedly illegal aliens. Nothing happened to her aggressors, but Noelia was never the same. She plunged into a severe depression, and suffered as well from borderline personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2022, Noelia tried to end her life by throwing herself from a fifth-floor window. She survived, but ended up a paraplegic, stuck in a wheelchair and suffering great pain. She then demanded euthanasia, which Spain’s current government of Socialists and communists legalized in 2021. Noelia’s father opposed it, arguing that her many disorders prevented her from making an informed decision, and pursued the case till the end in the courts. On Thursday, a Barcelona judge denied a last-minute request to halt the proceedings. Around 6:00 pm, doctors at Hospital Residència Sant Camil in Sant Pere de Ribes, near the Catalan capital, gave her a lethal injection that stopped her breathing and her heart. Noelia, in other words, was asphyxiated by the same state that took her away from those who loved her — and then either could not or would not protect her. For the Left, this was a victory. The newspaper El País wrote caustically about the Abogados Cristianos, the Spanish Foundation of Christian Lawyers, which worked with Noelia’s father to stop the euthanasia. In typical lapidary style, the paper wrote: For a year and a half this organization [Abogados Cristianos] has been behind the father’s legal battle to prevent the assisted death of Noelia, who suffers from paraplegia. … Advised by the ultra-Catholic group Abogados Cristianos, the man has entangled his daughter in a legal maze that has kept her alive, against her will, for 601 days. For Spain’s main leftist newspaper, this was about “dying with dignity.” The court battle “prolonged the suffering of a young woman who has never wavered in her decision and who has received scientific endorsement from the independent professionals who make up the Catalan Guarantee and Evaluation Commission (CGAC).” And this has indeed been a battle between those who believe that the state, led by technocrats, has the right to impose its choices on the family, even to make life-and-death decisions, and those who believe in a higher order. Good and evil, some might say. Bestselling Spanish author Irene Gonzalez, a friend and insightful observer of Spanish life, called it a “state execution.” She wrote on X: The State separated her from her parents — who loved her — yet failed to protect, shelter, or provide her with psychological or emotional support. She was a vulnerable young woman whom the State left in a state of absolute defenselessness; its solution is simply to get her out of the way. Euthanasia appears to be the execution — the final step in a case involving abduction and torture — carried out with the haste of a system eager to erase the traces of what the “State” is truly doing in the name of a dignified death. America, look at Europe — and beware. * * * Mike Gonzales is the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

In a move that has sparked international condemnation and revived memories of some of the darkest chapters of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranian government announced Thursday that it has officially lowered the minimum age for military support roles to just 12 years old. Speaking on state television, Rahim Nadali, a cultural official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), confirmed that the new “For Iran” recruitment drive aims to mobilize children to assist security forces against what he termed “the global bully.” Nadali justified the decision by claiming a “high number” of young volunteers were eager to serve. These recruits, some as young as 12 and 13, are reportedly being tasked with operational patrols, manning checkpoints, and gathering security data. The announcement comes as residents in Tehran describe a city increasingly patrolled by untrained, armed minors. Witnesses report seeing teenagers in plainclothes wielding submachine guns at checkpoints, searching vehicles, and firing warning shots into the air to control crowds following recent missile strikes. This mobilization stands in direct violation of Article 38 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which mandates that states must take all feasible measures to ensure those under 15 do not take part in hostilities. Human rights organizations have reacted with horror, noting that Iran’s history of utilizing children in conflict is defined by extreme brutality. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the regime famously deployed a paramilitary force of young volunteers, many aged 12 to 17. In a tactic that remains a symbol of state-sanctioned cruelty, these children were used in “human wave” attacks to clear Iraqi minefields. Walking in rows, the children detonated mines with their bodies to clear a path for regular armored units. To encourage such sacrifice, the state reportedly issued many of these children plastic “Keys to Paradise,” promising immediate entry into heaven upon their martyrdom. It is estimated that between 36,000 and 45,000 students were killed during that conflict. The current recruitment drive follows a period of intense domestic violence against minors. The Center for Human Rights in Iran reports that security forces killed more than 200 children during a wave of protests in early 2026. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have previously documented systematic abuses, including the shooting and detention of child protesters. With over three million child laborers already in the country and a history of glorifying child martyrs like Hossein Fahmideh in school textbooks, activists warn that lowering the recruitment age is not a response to volunteerism, but a calculated move to further militarize Iran’s youth and use them as expendable tools of the state.